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Who else seconds the motion

that SHAVING CREAM cart

ma£e jAawtp a /dkaawie P

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FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

W ERE the great personages of the past victims
of a stupendous hoax? Could such eminent men
of the ancient world as Socrates, Pericles, and Alex-
ander the Great have been deluded and cast under
the spell of witchcraft — or did the oracles whom they
consulted actually possess a mysterious faculty
of foresight? That the human mind can truly
exert an influence over things and conditions
was not a credulous belief of the ancients, but a
known and demonstrable fact to them. That there
exists a wealth of infinite knowledge just beyond the
border of our daily thoughts, which can be aroused
and commanded at will, was not a fantasy of these
sages of antiquity, but a dependable aid to which
they turned in time of need.

It is time you realized that the rites, rituals and
practices of the ancients were not superstitions, but
subterfuges to conceal the marvelous workings of
natural law from those who would have misused
them. Telepathy, projection of thought, the materi-
alizing of ideas into helpful realities, are no longer
thought by intelligent persons to be impossible prac-
tices, but instead, demonstrable sciences, by
which a greater life of happiness may be had.

One of America's foremost psychologists and
university instructors, says of his experiments with
thought transference and the powers of mind— "The
successes were much too numerous to be merely

lucky hits and one can see no way for guessing t©
have accounted for the results." Have you that
open-minded attitude of today which warrants a
clear, positive revelation of the facts of mind which
intolerance and bigotry have suppressed for years?
Advance with the times / learn the truth about
your inherited powers.

Let this free hook explain

The Rosicrucians (NOT a religious organization) have been
leaders in introducing the ancient wisdom of mental phenom-
ena. Established throughout the world for centuries, they
have for ages expounded these truths to those thinking men
end women who sought to make the utmost of their natural
faculties. Use the coupon below — avail yourself of B pleasing
book of interesting information which explains how you may
acquire this most wn us aal and helpful knowledge,

9Se ROSICRUCIANS

(AMGRC)

=== USE THIS COUPON
Scribe D. A. J.

The Rosicrucians, AMORC,

San Jose, California.

I am sincerely interested In knowing more about this
unseen, vital power which can be used in acquiring
the fullness and happiness of life. Please send me,
without cost, the book, "THE MASTERY OF
LIFE," which tells me how to receive this information.

Name

Address State

uj v^sjtiu wmm

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r CHARLES ATLAS, Dept. 9E,

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□ Check here If under 18 for Booklet A.

I T IS a sad paradox that some of the things
that come out of war are good but it
seems that there is an inevitable share of good
in everything, even in evil. Before we go any
farther along the road to dreary platitude, we’ll
mention two of the good things: new writers, new
stories. This issue has both.

/''YUR lead novel is “The Strange Mission of Ar-
thur Pendran" by a new writer (to our
pages), John X. Pollard. We’ve asked him what
the “X” stands for, and he says it’s the spot he’s
on with his first accepted story — yes, there have
been rejections. Your editor agrees, only in say-
ing that it is a good spot. We believe you’ll find
this story one of the most fascinating fantasy ad-
ventures since A Connecticut Yankee. It’s all
there . Merlin, Excalibur, the Grail, King Ar-
thur; but in a way you’ve never seen before. We
recommend it to your attention during an hour
when you are looking -for solid entertainment.

A NOTHER new writer is Thorne Lee, who
1 1 breaks into fantasy for the first time, with a
bang, with “The Man Who Lost His Shadow.”
Here is a yarn that will be remembered, a long
time, because it has an excellence seldom reached
in the field of “fear.” It’ll tingle your spine and
cause your goosepimples to grow large. And as a
further recommendation, this same author has sold
a really fine mystery novel to our companion mag-
azine, Mammoth Detective, as the direct result of
his sale to Fantastic Advknturf.s. You’d be sur-
prised how many people a writer has to 1 please to
do that I

■OIE PRESENT, this issue, a story by Don Wil-
* ' cox which is different from the sort of thing
that made him famous. Therefore, we want your
earnest comment on it. We believe it to be fine
work, and a good story. It is definitely fantasy,
but what kind? It was one of those things we
just had to publish no matter how far' afield it
seemed to be. Every time we did that in Wilcox’s
case, we wound up with a pleased grin of triumph
on our faces. How about “telling us” again?

“T3URY ME DEEP” says Leroy Yerxa. That is,
the title to his contribution this time, and
we’ve taken him literally. About the time we
were setting this story up in type, we found rea-
son to reject one of his stories (can you imagine

it!) and the shock proved almost more than he
could bear. To our utter astonishment, we next
heard of him in Milwaukee, trying to get 'into the
army! Very, very fortunately, the medics dis-
covered the wounds on' his heart from the cruel
barbs of his critics of early years, and he had to
come back to us. Welcome back, Leroy — and we
didn’t mean it at all! We'll buy your stories!
Every once in a while, we go contrary to the
readers’ opinion of your stuff, just to prove to our-
selves we’re still editor.

W HEN it comes to “ideas we the editors never
think of,” Richard ‘Casey’s “Horn O' Plenty”
is one of those. There’s something delightful in
this utterly silly little tale of an auto horn that
but read' it yourself, and be delighted.

OERKELEY LIVINGSTON took a pencil,.

literally because that’s how he writes, believe
it or. not and made a fine story out 'of a very
little thing. “The Truthful Pencil” is just what
its' name implies — and you can easily see how val-
uable a pencil would be that wrote only the truth.

T EE FRANCIS has a son named Dickie, who
•*-“ ' once looked at a picture of Hitler in the news-
paper and decided'h'e didn't like it. What he did
is faithfully described in the story “Hitler’s Right
Eye.” We think vou’ll get a chuckle out of it, and
also a fine little bit of fantasy.

/COMPLETING our parade of fiction this month
is Helmar Lewis’ “Curse Of The Phantom Le-
gion,” a little tale about Africa and what happened
to a German Legion that stumbled athwart an
ancient curse. Sometimes we wonder if modern
'curses put on the rapists, of Europe aren’t proving
just as effective. Personally we think bombs are
a greater curse than spears . but both seem to
do the job! Judge for yourself in this story.

qpHE July issue of Amazing Stories, oldest sci-
ence-fantasy magazine in existence, and our fa-
vorite sister magazine, features a complete line-up
of stories written by fighting men ! Not only that,
but the articles, fillers, every reader’s letter, are by
soldiers. Further, the front and back covers are
by military men of this war; as are quite a few
of the illustrations. Almost 100%, this issue is the
work of those men who are performing a full-time
(Concluded on page 8)

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

§||

MMm

Mickey MacDougall, ace gambling detective, exposes
the 'neat' tricks and devices used by sharpers at cards,
dice, roulette, and other sucker 'come-ons'. This is his
own pungent story of exciting adventures and private
investigations.

Mickey MacDougall has rolled
up the sleeves of the most
expert 'gamblers' and uncov-
ered the hidden ace, the
loaded dice, the magnetized
spinner, by working with the
police all over the country.

READ IT AND PROFIT. ...TAKE

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

(Concluded front-page 6)

job fighting for our liberty, and yet give up some
of their “liberty” time to make such an issue pos-
sible. There’s a, great issue to get and keep in
honor of a great bunch of boys.

, \

TIIHILE passing out tips, if you liked Thorne
^ ' Lee’s story in this issue, his mystery novel ap-
pears complete in the August issue of Mammoth '
Detective, on the stands May 17. The title is “The
Fox And The Hound.” 80,000 words' of $2.50
novel for two-bits!

C'RANK PATTON sends us the startling and
4 pleasing news that the longie he has been work-
ing on is another “Doorway To Hell” story L Yes,
your editor can no more wait with patience than
you can ! This story was one of the most popular
we ever published, and we’ll be tickled to publish
another like it !

T70R you novel lovers, we have just purchased a
75,000 word fantasy, by J. W. Pelkie, called
“Fruit Of Battle,” which we predict will cause a
sensation in the fantasy fieldr It kept us glued to
its manuscript pages all during a Sunday afternoon,
and wound up in our file of coming good ones’ on
Monday morning — which proves at least one thing:
we work on Sundays sometimes!

T'VON WILCOX has a novel slated for our August
issue called “Cats Of Kadenza,” which is fea-
tured on a 'cover by J. Allen St. John, which we
believe is the' finest he has ever done. Wallace
West, old master of science fiction classics, comes
up, in the same issue, with “The Tanner Of Kiev,”
one of the most stirring and utterly delightful fan-
tasies to come out of this war. Here is a picture
of Russia that will open your eyes — and we guar-
antee it is a true concept of Russian fantasy.

O ECENTLY a reader asked us a question : “Can
you give us a list of fantastic and amazing
stories of all types which are tops in the past
twenty years?” Yes, that knocked us for a loop,
as you can well imagine. That’s a large order.
But we did give him a partial list. However, our
own interest has grown until we’d like to get a
collection of opinions by those who really know,
the readers who have been reading them that long.
So how about it, you fantasy lovers? Why not
send us your list of the best fantasy and science
fiction stories you’ve ever read — from any source
at all, not just Fantastic Adventures and Amaz-
ing Stories?

r>AVID WRIGHT O’BRIEN, stationed recently
at Salt Lake City, found time to write three

fantasy stories for us — which replenishes our sup-
ply. We’ll dole them out at intervals. 'And we;
might say that they’ll be treats — Dave’s experiences
in the Air Force haven’t hurt his writing. On the
contrary, they seem to have added a certain deep
sense of conviction to his every sentence. We’d
say here was a lad who had grown mentally in .
. stature. He’s seen things.

A UTHOR MORRIS J. STEELE reports that he
1 4 is now a Sgf. and stationed in Africa. Which
isn’t fantastic — but here is something that is ! The
first, man he met over there was the former as-
sistant - editor of Fantastic Adventures, Cpl.
Louis H. Sampliner. Said Sampliner: “It’s a

small world!” Said Steele: “Take a look at my
arm — then remember those rejects !” We have rea-
son to believe a certain Corporal is reconsidering
a few manuscripts — under duress !

T”J0N WILCOX has had a nibble from Universal
on his “Whispering Gorilla.” Recent successes
in horror and monster pictures have made the
studios “gorilla” conscious. We wish you luck,
Don. But we’re afraid the re-write men are. going
to murder one fine story! WG isn’t horror, by
any means, and if the movie is made anywhere
following the original script, it’ll be a wow of a
drama, but certainly it won’t scare anybody. If
only we were the script writers in this case

THAT famous author by the same name men-
’ " tioned in the previous paragraph has a deep,
dark secret concerning a literary effort? Come,
Don, is it a serious novel? Or a, radio show? Or
maybe that Children’s Book at long last?

npHE other day we were talking about the ability
4 of some people to foretell the future. Mrs.
Leroy Yerxa was one of the listeners. Just a few
days later we discovered she had a contribution to
the discussion that would- have amazed us — be-
cause she had just informed a friend that twin
girls would be bom to the friend, would weigh
approximately six pounds each. One week later
twin girls were born, the total weight being thir-
teen pounds. She explains it now — a dream.
Wonder if that’s where Leroy gets his plots?

Y/ ESTERD AY another O’Brien dropped into the
4 office — yes, it was an uncle, the long lost kind —
who proved to be as fantastic as one of his
nephew’s characters. He specializes in two things:
consultant in the rare minerals — the radioactive
minerals; forecasts of future events. He predicted
to us that the war with Japan would last another
five years and that Hitler would be murdered by
his own party, which would bring about an early
end of the European conflict. We hope he’s right
about the last— and wrong about the first 1 Your

editor thinks we can lick those lousy little in

a lot less than that. 1800 battle wagons in 1945
in the Pacific won’t be a “secret” weapon, but . !

Rap

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

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DECORATION BY ARNOLD KOHN

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MALCOLM SMITH

to grow

FANTASTIC adventures

CHAPTER I

"Curl Up with a Good Bookl"

ORRY, Pendran, but we can’t
use you.”

The red-haired young man
standing in front of the desk stared in
open-mouthed astonishment at the
speaker in the trim white jacket of an
Air Corps medico.

“But — but hell’s bells, Doc,” he
sputtered, “I’m a flier! I can fly any
crate you ever heard of — and make it
do things most of your wing-wearing
boys never heard of! My credentials
are right there on the desk in front of
your nose. Why don’t you at least
look at ’em?”

The young doctor leaned back in his
chair and spread his hands in a, gesture
of helplessness.

.“I’m not questioning your ability,
Pendran,” he said earnestly. “It’s just
that you’re not physically qualified to
be a fighter- or bomber-pilot for Uncle
Sam’s air forces. We’re governed by

certain inflexible ru ”

“ ‘Physically qualified’ my — my
foot!” Pendran growled. “I’ve flown
planes ever since I was big enough to
crawl into a cockpit. See them?” He
pointed a dramatic finger at his own
flashing blue eyes. “20-20. Both of
’em.” He flexed his arms and swelled
his broad chest, still bare from his re-
cent examination by the young man
behind the desk, and sinews rippled like
snakes under his tanned skin. “That is
muscle, Doc: beef, brawn and power.
Three years of football at Northwestern
put that muscle there.” He dealt the
left" side of his naked chest a jolt with
his fist. “And I’ve got a heart you
could power a plane with ! What more
do you guys want?”

The medico tried to be patient. He
had gone through scenes similar to this
many times before and they always dis-

. tressed him. He said:

“Look, Pendran, I know exactly how
you feel. But there are two things
wrong with you that won’t let me pass
you for pilot service. First, there’s
that left thumb; that once-broken
knuckle is too stiff ”

“Hell, am I supposed to thumb ’em
to death?”

“ — for requirements. Second, you’ve
a tendency to be color-blind — not pro-
nounced, but still present. Of course,
Pendran, there are other branches of
the Air Force that can use you. Why
not ”

Arthur Pendran had the answer be-
fore the young doctor could complete
the question.

“Because I’m a flier, not a gunner
or a bombardier or navigator or in-
structor or whatever else you have in
mind. Either I fly a plane in combat
or I sit around and wait for my draft
board to stick me in the army as a
private. There’s been a scrap going on
in Europe for a year and a half now;
and the way things are going, we’ll' be
in it by this fall. The way I see it,
the Japs would like to start something
but haven’t the guts;, so they’ll prob-
ably wait until we get tied up with the
Germans before they get too hostile.

“But that’s beside the point. Doc,
man to man, do you pass me as fit for
pilot service, or don’t you?

The medico sighed. “Put on your
shirt, Pendran — and keep it on. You’re
a nice guy and I like you. But I won’t
pass you!”

For a long moment the eyes of the
two men held; then, abruptly, the ten-
sion and anger left Pendran’s expres-
sion.

“All right, Doc; no hard feelings.”
He turned and picked up his under-
shirt from a chair. “You’re the fifth
one to turn me down, so I guess the
medical profession knows its business.”

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

He shrugged into his dress shirt,
knotted his tie with vicious, jerking
movements of his long-fingered, mus-
cular hands, and reached for his suit
coat.

“Anyway,” he grinned lopsidedly,
"there’s always the Commandos!”

anything else. He gave the bar in front
of Pendran a flip with his towel and
said: “What will it be, sir?”

“Beer,” Pendran replied mechan-
ically. “No; wait. Bourbon

and seltzer. Don’t mix it.”

“Yes sir.”

/"^UTSIDE the recruiting office, he
paused in the brilliant May-day
sun flooding Chicago’s LaSalle Street
and moodily lit a cigarette.

So now what? This was one time

he particularly wished he wasn’t an
orphan — even a fairly wealthy one.
The thought of returning to his apart-
ment was suddenly abhorrent. This
was no time to be atone with his

thoughts. He should call Mary and
let her know the result of his latest

effort to get into that branch of the
service where he would have done the

most good; but his disappointment was
too fresh, too sensitive, to discuss.

“What I need,” he reflected blackly,
“is to get damn good and drunk!”

He recalled the tiny, hole-in-the-wall
tavern across from the City Hall where
he and Sig North occasionally drank a
beer or two. Sig had been drafted a
month before, and Pendran missed the
big Swede.

He threw his half-consumed cigar-
ette into the gutter and moved off along
the crowded street, his bared red hair
a vivid spot of color among the throng.

The door to Al’s Place was opened
to the warm air of the late May after-
noon. Pendran plodded in, spiritlessly,
and found a stool at the far end of the
bar. Other than two men talking in
low tones over beer glasses at the far
end of the bar, the place was deserted.
A small radio near the cash register
mumbled over a ball game.

The bartender had a thin, precise
face behind rimless glasses. He re-
sembled a bank examiner more than

pOUR drinks in fairly rapid succes-
sion seemed only to deepen his fit
of depression. Ten of his twenty-five
years had been devoted to airplanes.
At fifteen he was a familiar figure to
the employees at the Municipal Air-
port; and he knew most of the pilots —
passenger and mail — by their first
names. On his sixteenth birthday he had
made his first solo flight in a battered
trainer, while its owner stood on the
ground below clutching his two hun-
dred dollars rental fee and sweating
copiously as young Pendran went
through loops and barrel-rolls and Im-
melmans over Chicago’s Southwest side.

By the time he graduated from
Northwestern, he had designed and
built four planes, one of which went
to pieces in the air, forcing him to
“hit the silk” for the first time. His
father, Myles Pendran, the wealthy
head' of a roller-bearing company, tried
mightily to turn young Arthur’s interest
into less dangerous channels. Then
shortly after Arthur’s twenty-third
birthday, Myles Pendran and his wife
died instantly in a head-on automobile
collision.

Arthur, after a brief but intense pe-
riod of grief, went back to his planes
and their engines and forgot the rest
of the world — with a single exception.
That exception was blonde and blue-
eyed, five feet two and crazy about
flying. Mary Graham was the pretti-
est stewardess on the Trans-American
Airlines foster — no mean accolade con-
sidering the potential movie stars and
Miss Americas filling such positions.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

He signaled for more bourbon and
brightened a bit at the thought of
Mary, She was in town now, with a
two-day layover; and he’d call her in
the morning after the edge of his dis-
appointment had blunted, and maybe
they’d fly down to St. Louis and see
Hugo and his wife.

But the black veil came down again..
Damn it, what was the use? A man
spent most of his life developing an in-
terest until he was an expert at it;
then when an opportunity came to make
use of that knowledge, some technical-
ity blocked him out. It wasn’t fair,
it was a damned outrage, and by God
he was going to get stinking drunk .

By the time the bartender had filled
his glass for the twelfth time, darkness
had come outside. A thin trickle of
customers came and left during the
hours, but none paid much attention
to the, red-haired young, man drinking
himself into a stupor at the end of the
bar.

A wavering length of white material
climbed onto the stool next to Pendran.
He blinked at it with owlish disinterest
and let his eyes turn back to their
gloomy scrutiny of nothing at all.
“Didn’t it work out, Art?”

“Naw,” Pendran growled, without
looking up from Lis tenebrous contem-
plation of his again empty glass. “Thish
doc was a nice guy but he wouldn’t

His voice trailed off, and slowly he
turned his head toward the occupant
of the neighboring stool. “Say, how
come you . . Mary? Mary! Well,
what d’ya know! You know, I was

just . . How’d you happen to-^ ”

His voice began to rise, and the girl
shook her head, smile'd, and said:

“I happened to be in the Loop and
came in here to use the phone. I saw
you sitting back here and thought
maybe you’d buy me a drink.”

^LTHICH was a lie — a white lie.

Mary Graham was blonde and
beautiful and intelligent. Most
men overlooked that latter quality in
her by their dreamy contemplation of
the rest. Not for the world would she
have let Pendran know that she had
deliberately set out to find him. She
had known -that he was to make a final
effort to join the Army Air Force today;
and the fact that he had not called her
was evidence enough that once again
he had failed. Disappointment makes
a man do many unpredictable things —
and some predictable ones.- When her
telephone calls to his hangars at Glen-
view and to his apartment failed to
locate him, she had remembered his
mention of beers with. Sig North at
Al’s Place; And when the telephone
book disclosed the proximity of the
tavern to the recruiting office 1 — well, it
was worth trying.

Yes, she loved him, and it was pretty
evident .that he loved her — when he
wasn’t thinking or talking about planes;
but it would never do for him to think
she hadn’t found him by accident. A
man was. funny that way: let him think
you were sorry for him and he wouldn’t
be around' any more.

Pendran called the barman over, or-
dered a Stinger for Mary and bourbon
for himself.

“I’m licked, Mary,” he said bitterly.
“None of ’em will have me. Got a
color-blind thumb, or something. Only
thing left is to sit around and wait for
my draft number to come up.”

She sipped her drink daintily. “The
army isn’t such a bad place, Art. You’ll
find plenty of action in it.”

“But I don’t belong on the ground !
All I’ve done since high school is .to
learn how to walk on clouds!” He
gulped down the contents of his glass
and beckoned to the barkeep.

Unobserved by Pendran, Mary Gra-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

ham caught the attendant’s eye and
shook her head slightly. She said,
“I’ve got to be getting back to the hotel,
Art. Tomorrow’s mine to do with as
I please, and I want plenty of sleep
so I can be up early.”

She hoped for the right response,
and he didn’t disappoint her.

“That reminds me,” he said, forget-
ting the barman hadn’t responded to
his signal, “I was going to call you in
the morning and suggest we fly down
to St. Louis and see Jean and Hugo.
Want to?”

“I’d love it! Supposing we take a
cab and you drop me off at the hotel
on the way to your place.”

“Wel-11 .” He had wanted to

get drunk, and wasn’t very far from
attaining his goal. “It’s still quite
early, Mary. Why not hit a night-
spot or two before we go home?”

She glanced at the watch on her
wrist. “It’s after ten. If we make a
night of it we’ll have to pass up that
St. Louis trip. I’ve got to be back for
the eleven o’clock flight to New York
tomorrow night. And I would, like to
see Jean.”

Pendran surrendered. “Okay; so
would I.” ‘ He slid from the stool,
helped Mary down, and tossed a bill on
the bar. “Come on.”

In the cab, headed for the near North
Side hotel where Mary usually put up
for her between-flights layovers, Arthur
Pendran said:

“I should spend a couple of hours
looking over the blueprints on that
cabin job Jerry Travers is interested
in. But, darn it all, I don’t feel like
thinking about planes. Not after what
happened down at theTecruiting office.”
She put a small, cool hand on his
fingers. “Of course you don’t, Art.
Tell you what: take a shower, go to bed
and curl up with a book. Something
that hasn’t got a plane or a war in it.”

Pendran laughed. “You know, Mary,
I don’t think I’ve read a novel since
I was fifteen. Maybe I will tonight,
just for the sheer novelty of it!”

A few moments later the taxi drew
to a stop before the marquee in front
of Mary's hotel. Pendran helped her
out, kissed her warmly, to the cabbie’s
evident approval, and re-entered the
cab.

“I’ll call for you around nine,” he
said, through the lowered window.

“Right. I’ll be ready. Goodnight,
Art.”

“Goodnight.”

He watched her enter the hotel, then
gave the driver his own address and
settled back. The cab turned east at
the next cross-street and headed for
Lake Shore Drive.

pENDRAN’S four room apartment
overlooked a corner of Lincoln Park
and the lake beyond. A woman came
in twice a week to clean — this was as
near as he cared to come to having
servants. Occasionally he prepared his
own meals, but for the most part he ate
at the hamburger stand across Hie road
from his hangars in Glenview.

He showered, brewed and drank sev-
eral cups of black coffee to dispel the
taste of liquor from his mouth and, in
pajamas, went in to examine the living-
room book shelves.

Myles Pendrail had been an omniv-
orous reader, and after his death, Ar-
thur had moved his books to the new
apartment. Among them were several
sets, specially bound; and it was from
these that Pendran made his selection.

It was one of a blue-bound set of
Samuel L, . Clemens— an author totally
unfamiliar to Arthur Pendran. He
glanced at the title and looked doubt-
ful.

“ A Connecticut Yankee in King Ar-
thur's Court” he read aloud. “That

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

sounds dry enough to put me to sleep
in a hurry!”

He went into the comfortably mas-
culine bedroom, threw back the covers
and snapped on a reading lamp. After
opening the windows to the cool air off
the lake, he lit a cigarette, stretched
out on the huge double bed and opened
the book. .

Bong. Bong.

It was the sound of. the living-room
mantel clock striking the hour. But
Arthur Pendran never heard it. Hank
Morgan and Clarence were discussing
the latter.’s system of wiring the elec-
trical fence about Merlin’s Cave where
a stand was being made against the
Church and all England’s knight-
hood. .

And at that, moment,- the reading
light went out, plunging the room into
absolute darkness!

“Damn!” he muttered. He put the
book face down across his knee and
lifted his hand to where the reading
lamp should have been. Should have
.been — but wasn’t.

Several surprising facts came into his
consciousness within the same moment:
the mattress under him seemed sud-
denly lumpy and hard; the light from
the stars and park lights beyond his
window had disappeared; and his room
seemed cold and damp.

He sat up abruptly and lowered his
feet to the floor then jerked them
back with a muttered exclamation.
They had touched cold, rough, damp
stone instead of the soft pile of a bed-
room rug.

Before his dazed mind could attempt
an explanation for these incredible dis-
coveries, a door opened in what should
have been the solid wall across from
where he lay, and a bent old man, bear-
ing a flickering torch, stood in the open-
ing. He wore a long black gown, and
a white beard depended to his waist.

Pendrah closed his eyes tightly; 'then
opened them again; but the vision en-
dured. He said, “Who the hell are
you.”

The old man’s face was shining with
excitement and satisfaction. He said,
in the cracked falsetto of the very old:

“God keep us! Then thou hast
come.”

CHAPTER II

, i Mission Uncompleted

r J''HE man lay pressed tightly against
the ground in the shelter of a line of
bushes. Above was the gray-blue sky
of daybreak, and below, beyond the
line of bushes, lay the tiny village of
Carignan just over the French side of
the Franco-Belgian frontier.

From time to time he turned his head
nervously toward the heavy growth of
timber cloaking the hill immediately be-
hind him; and his actions and expres-
sion clearly indicated that he was hid-
ing from someone or something as yet
undisclosed. ^

The man was breathing heavily,
^drawing great, shuddering breaths of
the warm July air into his lungs. His
pursuers had flushed him, an hour be-
fore, from the small gully where he
had spent the night; and in an effort
to throw them off his trail, he had
veered to the south, rather than con :
tinue west toward the English Channel,
still nearly three hundred kilometers
away'.

Suddenly the faint crackle of foliage
reached his straining ears from the
depths of the forest-cloaked hillside.
Instantly he came to his feet and, in
a crouching position, broke through the
fringe of bushes and plunged down the
slope toward Carignan, not more than
three or four kilometers distant.

Half way down the incline he cut

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

sharply to the left, seeking to put an
extended arm of the forest between him
and the eyes of those who sought him.
The outskirts of the village were very
near, now, yet he saw no visible signs
that any of its inhabitants were abroad.

The white roadway leading into Car*
ignan’s main thoroughfare lay directly
in front of him, finally; this he did not
cross but altered his course, instead, to
move parallel with it.

This was July, 1941. Hardly a year
before, the mechanized divisions of
Adolph Hitler had passed this way,
driving before them the bewildered
legions of France and Great Britain.
So quick the retreat, so rapid the ad-
vance, that only a single bomb crater
beside the road, and a fire-gutted house,
gave evidence that war had come again
to France.

Moving cautiously, using every pos-
sible bit of cover, the man skirted one
side of the village. It was his inten-
tion to go on past the town to the
tree-covered hills beyond, thus leaving
his hunters to waste valuable time
combing through every building of the
village. By the time this was done, he
should have gained enough ground to
out-maneuver them completely.

The success of this strategy de-
pended on not being seen by any of
the village inhabitants. Should a
chance observer see him pass the town
without stopping, it was more than
likely that his pursuers would be in-
formed of that fact and he would gain
nothing.

His luck failed to hold. He was
crossing a bit of cleared ground directly
behind a great stone church, when he
heard voices and the sound of ap-
proaching feet from around the far
corner of the same building.

"^^riTHOUT hesitation,, he wheeled
and slipped behind the opposite

side-wall of the church. Here he flat-
tened himself against the white stone
and waited, his ears cocked to follow
the still audible voices. And when he
heard them growing more distinct, he
knew their owners were nearing a point
from which he would be visible to
them.

His sharp eyes darted frantically
about, seeking- a place of concealment.
At once they caught sight of a side
door of the church only a few feet
from where he stood.

Sight and action were simultaneous.
Heart pounding with fear that the door
might be locked, he seized the knob and
twisted it sharply over, at the same
time pressing his shoulder against the
wood. Silently the portal moved in-
ward, and a second later he was in-
side, the door closed at his back.

A quick glance assured him the high-
vaulted interior was completely desert-
ed. The rows of wooden pews border-
ing either side of the nave were empty
of life. Light, faint and gray, came
through the clerestory windows.

His rough, peasant’s shoes were
soundless on the carpeted transept as
he moved on tip-toe past the altar. On
the opposite side of the apse was a sec-
ond door, identical to ; the one through
which he had entered the cathedral. It
was his intention to leave through that
door, thereby avoiding the pair outside,
and continue on into the hills.

The sudden creak of hinges froze him
in his tracks. A sliver of light ap-
peared where the great central doors
were located at the western end of the
structure. He cursed under his breath,
looked wildly around. A small door,
partially concealed by heavy drapes,
caught his eye from behind the altar;
and heedless of what might lie in
wait, he sprang across the intervening
space and entered-the room beyond.

Light from windows along one wall

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

disclosed a narrow, rather deep cham-
ber, empty of life. Except for several
glass display cases under the windows,
the place was unfurnished.

At the opposite end of the room was
a second door, also closed. He covered
the distance between on. swift, sound-
less feet arid pressed his ear to .the
crack. From the other side came the
sound of murmuring voices and moving
bodies.

Wheeling, he retraced his steps to
the first door. But this time it was not
necessary to strain his ears for indica-
tions that the auditorium was no longer
deserted. The shuffling of feet and the
whisper of voices told him that a goodly
portion of Carignan’s populace had
turned out for early morning Mass.

He was trapped! At any moment
the second door might open under the
hand of some church dignitary on his
way to the altar.

His keen mind found, examined, and
discarded several ideas for escape — all
within seconds. Beneath the rude gar-
ments of a French peasant, his lean,
muscular body was perfectly relaxed,
his narrow, aristocratic features free
from any indication of panic. Only a
man of unusual abilities and perfect
confidence could , expect to carry to a
successful conclusion this most difficult
of missions. It was the careful deci-
sion of those who had engaged his serv-
ices that he, above all men of Europe,
was possessor of those abilities.

A plan came to his mind, now, a plan
that he did not like, one that entailed
great risk and — perhaps worse — loss of
invaluable time. But he lacked time
in which to conceive a better.

jy^OVING with quick precision, he
slid behind the nearest display
case, reached in and removed a
stemmed goblet-like cup of dull-finished
metal, apparently silver. In times past

he had come across similar cups; and
his glimpse of the container, particu-
larly the circumference of the stem,
was responsible for the birth of his
plan.

He quickly upended the cup and
found — as he had expected — a round
aperture in its base — an aperture that
led into the hollow stem. Still holding
the goblet, he slid his free hand beneath
his left armpit, fumbled there for a mo-
ment, then brought forth a tiny silk-
encased capsule no thicker than his
little finger and perhaps two inches in
length. This he inserted deep into the
hollow stem, finding it necessary to
force the object somewhat.

This done, he replaced the cup as
he had found it, then glanced at the
small, hand-lettered card beside it.

The words were .in French:

SILVER GOBLET
(Roman)

Dating from about. the First Century
Unearthed from Roman ruins near
Exeter , Devon , England

Time was precious; he must hurry
if he were to outwit those who sought
him.. Yet he remained there for an-
other long moment, staring at the cup
with puzzled eyes.

Some strange property, of that gob-
let had caused his fingers to tingle
faintly while holding it!

It was almost as though the cup
were impregnated with some electrical
current of low voltage.

A sound at the eastern door of the
room galvanized the man into action.
Running lightly on the balls of his feet,
he crossed to the door through which
he had originally entered. Opening it,
he stepped calmly into the now well-
filled church and unobtrusively slid into
a vacant place on the nearest bench.

At one side of him was an elderly

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

woman in black; she sat stiff and still,
her eyes fixed ^in the Jiltar while her
trembling fingers fumbled at the rosary
about her neck. Obviously her thoughts
were miles away from the stranger be-
side her.

At his left was a small-boned little
man of indeterminate age in a neat,
dark suit and an uncomfortably high,
stiff collar. His button-like eyes were
shooting stealthy side-long glances at
the newcomer, and his pointed nose
quivered with nervous curiosity.

The stranger silently damned the
little man. One such as this could ruin
his plans completely — possibly cost
him his life. His intention was to re-
main until the service was over, linger
until the cathedral was empty, then re-
gain the secreted capsule and slip into
the hills. His chief danger lay in the
fact that those seeking him ‘would
doubtless enter the village before he
could get away. That in itself would
not be fatal, unless the little busybody
on his left

r j''HE entrance of the servers and the
priest — the latter a tall, sparse man
in the habiliments worn at low Mass —
interrupted the thought. The congre-
gation rose with a rustling of feet while
he approached the altar. There he
knelt, murmured a few words, then
rose and placed the chalice in its cus-
tomary spot.

There were lines in his face that
would not have been there in less try-
ing times; and his eyes were those of
one who has witnessed the suffering and
privations of his fellow men.

The flames of the two candles wav-
ered in the soft air from open windows.

“Dominus vobiscutn,” intoned the.
priest.

“Et cum spiritu tuo,” chanted the
red-robed servers.

Servers and congregation sank to

their knees. The priest, finger-tips
pressed together in the attitude of
prayer, turned and knelt at the altar
step.

War and strife, hunter and quarry —
all that was violent and cruel — had no
place here. For the first time in more
years than he cared to recall, the
stranger prayed. It came not from fear
and the hope of escape from his ene-
mies, but from a source beyond the
exigencies of the moment. And he was
comforted.

The priest rose at last. And the as-
semblage resumed their seats. A hush
settled over the crowded pews as the
celebrant took his place at the altar.

From his lips came words that were s
old when Europe was a wilderness.

“ Omnia secula seculorum.”

There was a slight flurry of activity
at the rear of the church.

“Gloria Patri, et ”

“ Achtung !”

The sharp, guttural command came
from one of a group of uniformed men
midway along the have.

There were four of them — three in
the black attire of the S.S. Totenkopf-
verbaende, the silver skulls-and-cross-
bones on their caps glinting evilly in
the light. The fourth was a tall, raw-
boned individual with blond hair and a
thin, arrogant face; he wore the hand-
some gray uniform of the Sicherheits-
dienst, with the silver letters S.D. em-
broidered within a black square on one
sleeve.

Significantly, not one of the church-
goers turned his head to stare at the
newcomers. All eyes remained stead-
' fastly on the priest, and each face main-
tained an impassive expression.

A new element had come into the
atmosphere, an element that had no
place in a house of worship. It was
Hatred, definite and unadorned —
hatred for these agents of Germany and

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

for everything they represented.

“Your indulgence, Father,” said the
German in the gray uniform. He spoke
in French, heavily accented. “Only a
matter of the greatest urgency could
cause us to interrupt these services.”
The priest said, quietly, “I , am
Father Dalcroix. What is it you
want?”

“We halve reason to believe,” said the
Gestapo agent urbanely, “that a Ger-
man citizen named Paul Albrecht is
hiding somewhere in Carignan. We
want him.”

“I know of no one by that name.”
“Naturally. He could have arrived
here only during the last hour.”

“Then why,” asked Father Dalcroix
evenly, “do you .find it necessary to
question me?”

The officer’s expression remained
bland. “We wish to determine if there
is a stranger among your congregation
this morning. If so, will you kindly
point him out to us?”

“In the House of God, no man is a
stranger,” the priest said simply.

The man in gray began to lose pa-
tience. “Your observation is allegor-
ical, Father. Also, it is evasive. Please
understand: if necessary, every mem-
ber of your congregation will be ques-
tioned. It will simplify matters, and
save time, if any stranger present is
pointed out to us immediately.”

Father Dalcroix shook his head. “I
cannot help you, monsieur.”

There was a brief moment of silence
as the eyes of . the two men locked.

“As you will,” said the German final-
ly. “Please remember that I sought
to 9pare the people of Carignan any
unpleasantness.”

ILTE TURNED to his three compan-
, A ions and spoke briefly to them in
German. There followed an exchange
of brisk salutes, and the black-uni-

formed trio separated to take up posi-
tions at the three doors leading to the
outdoors. Their leader then came for-
ward until he was within an arm’s
length of the altar. There, he turned to
face the occupants of the pews, his
dusty, scratched boots spread slightly
as though to brace him against the mute
hostility. In cold, precise tones he
said:

“I am satisfied that Paul Albrecht is
among you. You have three minutes
to produce him. Otherwise, I shall
select, at random, three from among
you and have them taken outside and
shot ! ”

There was an involuntary and collec-
tive gasp from the listeners. Father
Dalcroix descended hurriedly from be-
hind the altar and caught the speaker
by an arm.

“Mon Dieu! You cannot do this to
innocent people!”

The officer shook off the hand.
Ignoring the priest, he continued in the
same emotionless voice:

“These executions will continue,
three at one time, until either Albrecht
is produced or every man here is dead!

“If there is any doubt that I will
do as I have promised, please bear in
mind that I am Fredrich von Lemske.
Perhaps you have heard the name be-
fore this.”

It was clear that they had. Dal-
croix, his face suddenly ashen, stepped
hurriedly back and crossed himself. It
was Fredrich von Lemske who had or-
dered the deaths of three hundred
Czech students the previous winter;
whose record of ruthless brutality sur-
passed even that of Reinhardt Hey-
drich, the infamous Obergruppen-
fuerhrer of the Sicker heitsdienst.

The hunted stranger, Paul Albrecht,
was striving to make a decision. De-
livery of the tiny capsule meant more
to France, to the Allies — dn fact, to the

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PEND RAN

entire civilized world — than did the
lives, of every .person ojf the village.
And yet . could he sit silently by
and watch man after man go to death
because he, Paul Albrecht, would
not

“One minute.”

Von Lemske spoke those two words
coldly, almost indifferently. He stood
with head bent, eyes intent on the
hands of his wristwatch.

The black-uniformed guard in front
of the door at the end of the north
transept was only a few feet from where
Albrecht sat. Perhaps a sudden dash
would surprise him before he could
draw his gun. But no; the guard
across the church could shoot him
down before he would have taken four
steps. If only he hadn’t lost his own
gun during his tumble down that hill-
side, the previous day!

“Two minutes.”

Suddenly a wave of fury swept over
Paul Albrecht. Damn a filthy animal
that would terrorize a helpless people
with such evident relish ! It made him
hate himself because he, too, was Ger-
man. He’d give himself up, by God,
and to hell with

He was spared the trouble.

' JpHE small-boned man with the
pointed nose sprang to his feet, al-
most stumbling over Albrecht’s legs in
his haste.

“There is the man!” he cried shrilly,
pointing a wavering finger at Albrecht.
“He is the one you want! He is not
one of us!”

The man in the rough garb of a
French peasant made no effort to evade
the two guards coming toward him with
drawn pistols. He eyed the informer
with compassionate understanding, for
he knew what a horrible thing fear
could be.

Von Lemske pushed the little man

aside indifferently.

“You are Paul Albrecht?”

“Yes.”" - '

“Come with us.”

As he rose to his feet, one of the
guards stepped forward and ran his
hands expertly over him, searching for
hidden weapons. Finding none, he
stepped back and nodded briefly to the
leader.

They went back up the nave, Al-
brecht among them, with brisk, firm
strides. From the corners of his eyes
Paul saw that the people in the seats
were not watching him and his captors;
instead their eyes were hostilely intent
on someone in the front row.

The little man with the long nose had
aided the agents of Germany, and the
people of Carignan would neither for-
get nor forgive.

They came out into the sun-splashed
coolness of a summer morning. Never
before, thought Paul, had the outdoors
seemed so lovely, never before had col-
ors and objects seemed so vivid and
sharply defined. Was it thus because
he knew he was seeing them for the
last time? He was not afraid to die;
he assured himself, but torture was an-
other matter. Von Lemske’s entire
future depended on finding that cap-
sule, and, as a graduate of the Gestapo
Ordensburgen at Munich, he was quali-
fied to wrest information from the most
stubborn of tongues.

He tried to beat back his mood of
fatalistic antipathy. He had been in
tight places before this — many of
them! And always before he was able
to wriggle out with a whole skin.

His captors made no attempt to in-
terrupt his thoughts. That, again, was
part of von Lemske’s methods. Give
a man a chance to think over what was
in store for him and often his resistance
was gone before it began. But, if it en-j
dured, there were other ways.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

O n A SIDE street, a short distance.

off the town’s principal avenue,
stood the headquarters of the local gen-
darmerie. The five men entered the
building and von Lemske held a brief,
low-voiced colloquy with the chief. The
latter, a short, very bowlegged French-
man with a bristling moustache, finally
shrugged resignedly and led the group
to a small, white-washed room on the
second floor, containing a deal table and
two straight-backed chairs.

Von Lemske, once the chief was
withdrawn and the door closed, wasted
no time.

“All right, Albrecht; disrobe.”

His face impassive, Paul Albrecht
stripped to the skin and handed his
clothing to one of the guards, who went
promptly to work on it with system-
atic thoroughness and a pocket-knife.

The Gruppenjuehrer leaned against
a corner of the table and watched while
Albrecht’s apparel was carefully re-
duced to shreds. As the minute inspec-
tion neared an unfruitful end, his face
began slowly to darken with rage. And.
when the agent pushed aside the rem-
nants and turned up the palms of his
hands in silent acknowledgement of
failure, von Lemske stood up and came
over to the naked mart.

He pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Al-
brecht.”

Paul obeyed, and the leader drew up
the remaining chair and sat down across
from him. He drew a cigarette case of
hammered silver from the breast pocket
of his tunic, flipped back the lid and
extended it. “Smoke?”

Albrecht accepted one of the paper
tubes with a steady hand, took the prof-
fered light and leaned back.

“Albrecht,” the German began,
speaking with calm restraint, “I do not
propose to play cat-and-mouse games
with you. You know why we have
spent the past two weeks . trying to get

our hands on you; now I am going- to
tell you what we know. Thus will I
show why it will be useless for you to
answer my questions with lies..

“First: You are Paul Albrecht, alias
Rudolph Myer, alias Paul Hauptmann,
alias Richard Saar. You were born in
Seehausen, Saxony, thirty-seven years
ago. Second: You are perhaps the
foremost agent provocateur of all Eu-
rope. In that capacity you rendered
extraordinary services to the German
government. For two years previous
to the invasion of Poland you were at-
tached to the Luftwaffe Intelligence un-
der the direct orders of Marshal Goer-
ing. You were reported killed during
the seige of Warsaw.

“All right. Now 1 we come up to the
present. Two months ago one of our
agents, a man who knows you very
well, reported he had seen Paul Al-
brecht in the company of Ernst Moel-
ler, a Nazi Party member whom we
have long suspected of being a traitor.
Through certain connections that I
need not explain, it was learned that
you had been selected to carry out an
important mission — a mission that
could conceivably bring Germany loss
of the war.

“It was learned that you were to pick
up a small package at Moeller’s home
on a certain night and deliver it, by
plane, directly to British Intelligence
Headquarters in England. Our deci-
sion was 'to allow you to accept the
package, then intercept you while leav-
ing Moeller’s house on your way to the
plane.”

He paused long enough to light fresh
cigarettes for Paul and himself, then
continued:

“But you outwitted us, Albrecht. I’ll
give you credit for being a wily cus-
tomer. While we did prevent you from
getting to the plane, we were not able
to lay you by the heels. And for two

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

weeks we’ve been chasing you com-
pletely across Germany,always close
behind you, but never close enough.
Until today.

“We know what’s in that little pack-
age, Albrecht. You see, Ernst Moeller
told us everything about it. We were
forced to be — well — unpleasant; but
he told us.”

Paul Albrecht exhaled a blue ribbon
of smoke and shook his head.

“That last happens to be untrue,
von Lemske,” he said coolly. “Moeller
shot himself to death while your men
were forcing their way into his study.”

WAVE of dark blood suffused the
GruppenJuehreSs thin-s k i n n e d
cheeks. “So you know that, eh? Well,
it is of no importance. I want that
package, Albrecht. Where is it?”

As simply as that. From now' on,
the glove would be off the iron hand.
The prisoner felt his skin crawl under
the realization of what lay ahead of
him.

“I do not have it,” he said.

“So I observe,” von Lemske admit-
ted dryly, pointing to the sliced bits of
cloth and leather that had been Al-
brecht’s clothing and shoes. “Since the
package may be quite small, you may
have secreted it in one of the cavities
of your body. If so, producing it will
save you the painful indignity of hav-
ing my men make such a search.”

“I do not have it.”

Von Lemske shrugged. “As you
wish.” He motioned to one of the
Death’s-head guards. “Go over him —
thoroughly.”

A few moments later, the guard rose
from his knees and stepped back.

“Da ist nichts, Herr Gruppen-
ftiehrer,” he reported stolidly.

The leader sighed. “Very well, Al-
brecht; you can sit down again.” He
walked over to the barred window and

stood there, staring into the street be-
low.

The naked man Tel himself ^gingerly,
down on the chair seat and waited fori
further developments. >

Five minutes dragged by. There
was silence within the room. Outside,
birds sang among the trees, and the,
shrill voices of children at play camel
through the open window. Paul felt
little globules of sweat form on his
forehead.

Abruptly von Lemske turned and
came back to face the prisoner. >
“Albrecht,” he said crisply, “this has;
gone far enough. Tell me What you
have done with that packet and I will
give you your freedom. My word of,
honor.”

Paul had his private opinion of the
leader’s honor, but he kept it to him-
self. Slowly he shook his head.

“I do not have it,” he said for the
third time.

“Who does?”

“Otto Dreiser,” he lied, his quick
mind having hit on a way to stave off
what eventually must come if it
worked.

“Who is Otto Dreiser?” von Lemske
asked, obviously taken aback by the
information.

“An acquaintance of mine.”
“When?”

“Five days ago.”

“I am to believe that you gave the.,
packet to this Otto Dreiser five days!
ago?”

“It is the truth,” Albrecht mumbled.r
“Where?”

“At Dahlem.”

“Explain.” ;s

•“I ran across him a few miles outside!
the town. He hates the Party bitterly
because his son was executed on-
trumped-up charges. I told him whatq
I was trying to do, that I was likely*
to be caught at almost any minute, and;-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

asked if he would attempt to carry out
my mission. He agreed eagerly. I then
gave him the packet and complete in-
structions; then I continued on, hoping
to delay my own capture long enough
to allow Otto to gain the coast.”

^TON LEMSKE rubbed his chin
thoughtfully, his chill blue eyes
boring into those of the prisoner.
Finally he said:

“No . no. It won’t do, Al-
brecht. It’s a little too coincidental;
too — too pat. It appears I shall have
to force the truth out of you.”

Tiny bits of ice seemed to move up
Paul Albrecht’s spine, but he kept his
face expressionless.

“I have given you the facts,” he said.

“That is unfortunate — for you. I
must proceed under the premise that
you have lied. If your memory im-
proves at any time during the next
hour or so, you will be spared further
. questioning.”

He turned away, then, and said a
few words to one of his companions in
a voice too low for Paul to hear. The
man saluted and left the room, closing
the door behind him.

The remaining pair of guards leaned
against the table and kept their eyes
fixed unwaveringly on the prisoner.
Paul sat with head bowed, ears un-
consciously straining for the returning
footsteps of the absent member of the
group.

Von. Lemske had gone back to his
thoughtful contemplation of the. street
below.

And then the door opened and. the
black-uniformed man came in, gingerly
carrying a srtiall brazier containing
blazing charcoal. Held in place under
one of his arms was a slender, pointed
length of iron:

He placed his burden on the table
and stepped back as von Lemske saun-

tered over and picked up the iron poker.
He hefted it appraisingly, then thrust
it deep into the burning charcoal and
left it there.

“Your whip, Walter,” he murmured.

“Jawokl, Herr Gruppenjuehrer.” The
Elite Guard reached inside his uniform
coat and brought out a tightly rolled
length of rawhide with a short weighted
handle.

The leader uncoiled the single
strand, allowing ' the tip to 1 dangle in
front of Paul’s bowed head.

“Listen to me, Albrecht,” he said
tightly. “Have you ever felt the bite
of leather across you cheek? Like
this r

Crack /

Paul recoiled involuntarily as a
knife-blade of fire seared his left cheek.
He felt the muscles of his stomach
contract and knew hazily that fear did
that to a man.

“Put down, your hands, Albrecht.”

Obediently he dropped them against
his naked legs. He had to grit his teeth
to do it, but he knew any remonstrance
would be futile.

All traces of politeness were gone,
now, from the voice of the S.D. man.
He said:

“I want that packet, Albrecht. Either
tell me now where you have hidden it,
or you get twenty-five lashes to loosen
your tongue. Which will it be?”

Paul Albrecht swallowed. God give
him the strength to endure I “I’ve told
you the truth, von Lemske; what else
do you want?”

“The truth, damn you!” He mo-
tioned savagely to his assistants. “On
the table with him! I’ll beat this dog
to death!”

\yiTH

the celerity of experience,
they jerked the nude man from
his chair and slammed him face down
across the table. He felt the wood

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

grind painfully into his cheek under
the weight of ruthless hands.

'The whistle of rawhide through the
air.

Cr-rack!

Liquid acid, eating a thin path across
a bare back.

“Em,” said an indifferent voice.

Again the whistle.

Cr-rack!

A red cloud of agony blotted out the
light, and blood from his bitten lip
touched his tongue.

“Zwei”

At the sixth impact he groaned aloud;
at the twelfth he screamed, thin and
high, like a woman.

And relentlessly the bloodied lash
rose and fell.

Merciful unconsciousness kept him
from feeling the last seven blows. A
dipper of water, dashed against his
face, brought him to, and he was
dragged from the table and shoved back
on to the chair.

“Albrecht, can you hear me?”

“Uh.”

“Where is that packet?”

“I— I

“Spit it out, you dog! Where is that
packet ?”

told you. Please . .”

A brutal hand in his thick hair jerked
his head up.

“The next time, it’ll • be fifty, Al-
brecht.”

The skin of his back, from neck to
hips, was on fire. The thought of fur-
ther torment made the room spin be-
fore his eyes. He couldn’t bear any
more. A man could only stand so
much. Must he be expected to suffer
to save the pain and misery of the
world’s people?

“Think, Albrecht. Cool salves and
bandages for your back. A soft bed;
sleep. No more pain. Tell me: where
is that packet?”

“Water

“Yes. You can have water. All
you want. Cold water, Albrecht. When
I have that packet.”

“Oscar Dreiser . . has it.”

“ Oscar Dreiser? Before, it was Otto
Dreiser! Now I know you’re lying!
Perhaps this will put an end to your
falsehoods!”

Von Lemske disappeared from the
radius of Paul’s agony-clouded eyes,
then was back again almost immedi-
ately. In his right hand he held the
iron poker brought from below, .five
inches of its tip a dull glowing red.

“One last chance, Albrecht,” he
growled. “Do you tell me what I want
to know, or do I burn it out of you?”

The battered man cowered back,
shielding his face with trembling hands.
He opened his mouth to speak, to cry
out the information von Lemske
wanted; but terror paralyzed the mus-
cles of his throat so that he could only
croak meaningless sounds.

The gray-uniformed leader should
have waited. But his patience — never
a strong characteristic with him —
snapped a moment ahead of victory.

“All right,” he snarled. “If you won’t
talk, then by God you’ll sing!”

And with that he laid the poker tip
squarely against Paul Albrecht’s naked
chest !

“Aieeeeee!”

So inhuman the keening cry, so ter-
rible the depths of suffering it por-
trayed, that the four members of the
Gestapo felt their scalps crawl. The
tortured man twisted violently back
from the searing metal; his chair went
over backward and he fell heavily, his
head striking the floor with a resound-
ing thump.

^/DN LEMSKE, his thin lips curling;

with revulsion, eyed the motion-
less figure for a moment. Then he,

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

turned and replaced the poker tip back
among the burning charcoal in the
brazier.

“Bring him ’round,” he ordered. “I

doubt that he’ll give Wait! What’s

he saying?”

The lips of the unconscious man were
moving, and a low-voiced mumble
reached the ears of von Lemske and
his henchmen. They pressed for-
ward, heads bent in a listening attitude.

“ ‘ He maketh me to lie down in
green pastures ’ ”

Von Lemske uttered a startled oath.
“The poor fool is praying!”

“Out of his mind,” observed one of
the others uneasily.

They looked at one another uncer-
tainly. Despite the doctrine of Adolph
Hitler, it seemed wrong to interrupt a
man’s pr.ayers.

“ ‘ . He restoreth my soul . . ’ ”

The S.D. man wet his lips. “Pick
him up; we’re wasting time.”

They propped the babbling shell of
a once powerful man onto the chair seat.
Blood from his back smeared the
wooden rounds, and from the five-inch
brown-red welt on his chest came the
stench of burned flesh and hair.

“Albrecht,” von Lemske said loudly.
“Are you ready to talk?”

The pain-racked eyes fluttered open.
They rolled wildly in their sockets, saw
nothing. The twisted lips continued to
move.

“ £ .anointeth my head with, oil;
my cup runneth over ’ ”

He stopped there, and a mad light
suddenly blazed up in his eyes. “My
— cup — runneth — over,” he repeated
slowly. Then: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! £ My
cup runneth over 1 ’ Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha ! ”
Their skin crawled under the sound
of the insane, screaming laughter. Vori
Lemske, snatched up the whip and
•brought it slashing across Albrecht’s
face. “Shut up! Shut up, you. fool!”

The blow seemed to restore a sem-
blance of sanity to the lash-marked,
twisted countenance. Slowly Albrecht
lifted a wavering hand to his lips as
though to steady their twitching.

And then he acted !

With a mighty bound he rose from
the chair and flung himself toward the
table, knocking two of the guards aside
with his shoulders. Before the men
realized his purpose, he had snatched
the fire-tipped poker from the pan of
coals, gripping it as one would hold
a club.

The four Gestapo agents leaped back,
von Lemske clawing for his gun and
shouting, “Put it down, Albrecht; put
it down, or I’ll shoot!”

In answer, Albrecht brought his two
hands together in front of him, the
poker pointing upward. Then without
a word, without a glance at the horrified
audience, he drove the burning point
of the poker with all the strength of
his arms full into his own right eye !

For fully a minute the four men stood
staring down at the distorted figure of
the dead traitor, the length of iron still
embedded in its skull. And then von
Lemske slid unsteady fingers into an
inner pocket of his coat and brought
out a small, leather-bound note-book.
Opening it to the desired page, he pro-
duced a fountain-pen and wrote rapidly
for a moment or two.

Finishing, he started to close the
book — then hesitated, his eyes on the
corpse. He smiled, then, with clear
satisfaction, and added two more words
to the text :

“Mission uncompleted . .”

CHAPTER III

Mission from the Past

JT REQUIRED a full minute for Ar-
thur Pendran to recover use of his

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

voice. Meanwhile, the white-bearded
old man continued to beam at him with
utmost cordiality.

“Who are you?” Pendran repeated
finally. “And how in blazes did you
get in my apartment?”

The old one registered surprise. He
quavered, “Marry! Then thou hast
named thy dungeon?”

Pendran let out his breath in sharp
exasperation.

“Now, wait a minute!” he snapped.
“Let’s get a few facts straight before
we start on riddles. You sound like one
of those Sixth Century dopes I’ve been
read ”

He stopped abruptly in mid-sentence
as the truth struck home. Why hell’s
bells, he was dreaming! That’s what
this was. Just a vivid dream.

He pushed out of his mind a nagging
reminder that no dream could possibly
be so realistic as this. He said, “Okay,
I get it now. I suppose you’re

let’s see, now ” He paused and

thought quickly back over the pages
he had been reading. “Why, sure! You
must be Merlin, the magician.”

The old man’s mouth fell open and
he grasped- hastily at the door jamb
for support.

“God’s Wownds! This passeth mine
understanding! Art all men of thy time
so gifted that they may call aloud the
name of whomsoever they first chance
to see?”

“Sometimes,” Pendran admitted,
grinning. “Then thou — I mean, then
you are really Merlin?”

“I am so called,” admitted the old
man proudly. “And sith I am known
to thee, peradventure I can give thy
name also.”

“It’s a good trick if you can do it,”
agreed Pendran.

“Then list as I name thee. Thou hight
Sir Arthur Pendragon— God keep the
name.”

The young man shook his head, still
grinning. “Not bad. Of course, you
got the last name a little balled up
and the ‘Sir’ doesn’t fit. My
name’s Arthur Pendran.”

Merlin smiled mysteriously. “Come;
let us tarry not. The queen awaits
thee with sore patience.”

“Queen?” Arthur looked down at his
pajamas. Even in. dreams, he reflected,
it would not do to call on royalty in
such garb. “How about some decent
clothes?”

“Clothes?” echoed Merlin, bewil-
dered. “I fziil to grasp thy meaning.”

“Something to wear. A suit and
shirt.” He got off the crude bunk and
rose to his feet. “Look,” pointing to
his pajama coat, “I sleep in these!”

“Ah, thy garments!” ’The light of
understanding dawned on the wrinkled,
hairy face. “They are there.” He
pointed to a crude stool at the foot
of the pallet.

There, neatly folded, lay the same
brown suit, white shirt and dark orange
tie Pendran had worn during the previ-
ous day. And on the dank stone floor
were his socks and brown .calf-skin ox-
fords.

“Don them quickly,” Merlin urged,
“for the good queen must even now
count the passing minutes. An it please
thee, I shall withdraw until thou art
suitably garbed.”

“Not necessary,” Pendran said cheer-
fully, shrugging off his pajamas and
reaching for the heap of clothing. “I’m
not bashful.”

He dressed hastily, finding it more
difficult by the . moment to regard this
experience as a dream. Impressions
and the evidence of his senses were
too clearly defined to permit complete
acceptance of such a theory. Yet there
could be no other explanation.

Shoes tied, he slipped into his coat
and turned to the waiting Merlin.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Okay, fella; let’s go see Her Majesty.”

TJTE FOLLOWED the aged magician
outside the cell and up a crude
flight of stone steps to a huge square
chamber. Wails, ceiling and floor were
of unfinished stone and the only furnish-
ings were several ornately carved chairs
grouped about a mammoth, wood-burn-
ing fireplace in one wall, and a low,
marble dais at the far end of the room.
A throne-like wooden chair, in blue and
gold, flanked by two circular shields,
stood atop the dais; it was unoccupied.
Crudely woven tapestries hung from the
walls at several points, but they failed
dismally to lighten the chill, uncomfort-
able gloom of the place.

Before a doorless opening near the
dais stood a burly man-at-arms in a
white tunic and blue cape. His hands
and arms were covered with chain mail
and a close-fitting metal casque shielded
his head and neck. Thick brown hair
on his upper lip cloaked he mouth
beneath.

Merlin nodded shortly to the man-
at-arms, who turned immediately and
disappeared through the doorway.

“Come with me to the throne,” mur-
mured the old man. “Our wait shall
be brief, for the good queen burneth
to hold council with thee.”

Nor was he wrong; for hardly had
they reached the foot of the elevation
than a lovely young woman appeared
in the opening, followed by a retinue of
attendants.

The reddish silk of her dress hugged
her rather tall, lissome figure almost
to the knee, then flared out slightly to
extend to the floor. Above the bodice
her neck and shoulders were bare, re-
vealing the warmly tinted perfection
of flawless skin. A page boy in tunic
and hose held the long train of her dress
from contact with the rush-covered floor
as she regally mounted the two steps

of the dais and sank onto the chair. A
male attendant draped several thick
furs across the chair back to cushion
her bare shoulders.

She seemed completely unaware of
the presence of Merlin and Arthur Pen-
dran as she shook back the waist-length
strands of her curling, light blonde hair
and raised a shapely hand to the circlet
of gold resting on her head.

At last she turned her gaze to meet
the rapt eyes of Arthur Pendran. An
in that instant the half-mocking smile
faded from the lips of the young Amer-
ican, and the quip he had been on the
point of- uttering died unborn.

Tragedy, recent and appalling, had
left its mark on her delicate features.
This was evident in the tear-reddened
lids of her dark blue eyes and the tem-
porary lines of suffering lightly etched
in her cheeks. She was attempting to
cloak her emotions under a brittle shell
of stone-faced reserve.

“Then thou art Sir Arthur Pendra-
gon,” she observed, her voice soft and
unutterably weary. “I bid thee wel-
come, my lord, to Camelot.”

''JpHE conviction that all this was but
a vivid dream began to weaken in
Arthur Pendran’s mind as he stood
there listening to the lovely young wo-
man.

She held up a hand to halt what he
was about to say .

“Nay, let me speak my fill. Thou hast
been summoned from a distant age,
and thou art woundily puzzled and dis-
traught. For that, we crave thy pardon,
my. lord. To thy own age shalt thou
shortly be returned; my word upon it.
Nor is the pledge of Guinevere lightly
given.

“As to how this was brought about,
I knoweth not. Mayhap good Merlin
can inform thee; it was he who ar-
ranged the miracle. Suffice it to say

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR RENDRAN

that we have need of thy services, fair
lord, and naught must come between
thee and the fulfillment of the task I
presently will name.”

Pendran squared his shoulders bel-
ligerently. “Just a minute, lady. I’m
still not so sure this isn’t all a night-
mare; but even in nightmares I don’t
take a pushing around without putting
up some kind of an argument. So, just
for the record, suppose you answer me
a few questions.”

The girl’s lips quirked slightly in a
wan smile.

“Forsooth, thy words are wearisome
to follow but I have their meaning. Ask
as thou wilt.”

“Okay . What year is this?”

“It falleth within the year of our
Lord five hundred and thirty-seven, an
it please you.”

“ 537 !”

“Even so.”

Pendran shook his head slightly and
expelled his breath in a long sigh.

“Well, I asked for it. . Now, why
do you call me Arthur Pen dragon?
It’s close, all right, but my name is
Arthur Fendran”

“It is a twisting of thy true name
you give me,” the woman said
promptly. “Know ye, my lord, that thy
true forebear was the noble King Ar-
thur, whose widowed queen am I.”

Pendran’s eyes bulged. “You mean
you’re my long-lost great-grand-
mother?”

Guinevere was forced to ponder over
the last question for a long moment
before she arrived at his meaning. Her
smile was a trifle broader as she said:

“No blood of mine flows in thy blood,
Sir Arthur. Merlin hath told me thou
art from the issue of Sir Modred, whose
father King Arthur was, but is no son
of mine. But in thee, fair lord, is the
blood of Arthur; were it not thus, Mer-
lin could never have summoned thee

across the centuries to us here.”

“Which brings us back to where we
started,” Pendran mused. “Let me put
this in Twentieth Century English,
Guinevere, and see if I’ve got it
straight.

“Because I happen to be a direct des-
cendant of King Arthur, who lived
about fourteen hundred years ago, Mer-
lin — who lived at the same time — was
able to reach into the future and bring
me back to Merrie England of the Sixth
Century. This was done because a cer-
tain job had to. be pulled off and I’m
the fair-haired boy who was elected to
do it. And as soon as I finish it to
your satisfaction, I get shipped back
to my time. Is that the picture?”

She thought it over for a moment,
struggling with Twentieth Century
idiom and slang to get at his meaning.
Her expression cleared finally, and she
said:

“In part, you have it. Elsewhere,
thou art in error. For wit ye, fair lord,
thy mission lies not in this age but in
thine own!”

Pendran showed his bewilderment.
“You mean I’m to do a job for you in
my time — fourteen hundred years from
now?”

“Even so,” Guinevere said equably

Pendran scratched his head. “All
right; I’m through asking questions.
Suppose you just go ahead and give it
to me in words of one syllable.”

The queen nodded to the bearded
old man standing beside him.

“Sith Merlin hath uncovered all
truths in the matter, let him be the one
to tell thee.”

'’JpHE ancient one bowed to the queen
and to Arthur Pendran and made
ready to speak. The red-haired young
man wondered if someone might fetch
chairs, for the approaching explanation
promised to be a long one; but it ap-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

peared that no one sat in the presence
of the lovely Guinevere, so he said
nothing;

“Knowest thou, Sir Arthur,” Merlin
began, “of the Holy Grail?”

“A little,” Pendran admitted doubt-
fully. “It’s supposed to be the cup Jesus
used at the Last Supper. The knights
of old used to go helling around
Excuse me,” he ended lamely, noting the
expressions of the queen and Merlin.

It was evident they were , going to
be Christian about his bad break and
overlook it. Merlin continued:

“Long have the true knights of Ar-
thur’s Round Table sought the Grail,
but found it not. And so I, Merlin,
turned to mystic rites to aid in the
search. After much disappointment
I was able to reveal its place but,
though I saw it, I could touch it not.
Sith I saw it two hundred years in the
future!

“For know ye, Sir Arthur: Whilst
it lies within my power to see into the
future, even unto the end of the world,
it is beyond me to place my body be-
yond where it is at any moment called
present. Thus, whilst I could see the
Grail, I couldst touch it not.

“Only lately have. I had revealed
unto me the secret of transporting into
the time of King Arthur those from a
future age. And with this secret came
a Heaven-sent plan: I would find %
where the Grail lay hidden, then sum-
mon a worthy knight from that time
and prevail upon him to gain posses-
sion of the Grail. Then, whilst he
held it in his hand, I would fetch him
back through the ages to Camelot, that
he might place the holy object within
my keeping.

N “Yes, it was a good plan, and I joy-
ful. And then, in a dream, came a
revelation that turned my joy as ashes
in my mouth.”

Under the spell of the old man’s sim-

ple, eloquent, dramatic recital, Arthur
Pendran completely forgot that all this
was supposedly a dream.

“What was this revelation?” he de-
manded tensely.

“This: That only he in whose body
was the blood of King Arthur be per-
mitted to act in the mission.”

“That stopped you, eh?”

“Verily. For whilst I found many in
the ages between my time and thine
whose blood was Arthur’s, the location
of the Grail remained a mystery. In
those fourteen centuries I found the
Grail but twice; the first I could find
no trace of King Arthur’s issue — the
second, I found you
“And after my age?”

“All trace of the Grail was gone.”
Pendran fingered his lower lip
thoughtfully. “In other words, either
I get. the Holy Grail for you, or you
don’t get it at all.”

Soberly, Merlin nodded. “You have
named it,” he said simply.

r jpHE American, let his gaze wander
slowly about the room. He looked
at the members of Guinevere’s ret-
inue in their colorful, over-stuffed cloth-
ing; at the men-at-arms, competent-
looking in breastplates and morions,
and stiff and erect, their halberds firm
in mailed fists.

And, lastly, he stared thoughtfully
at the lovely, sad-faced young woman
on the throne .and knew that what he
was about to say would bring no relief
to her.

“Sorry, folks,” he said briskly, “but
I can’t help you!”

Merlin’s face reflected only shock
and disappointment; but Guinevere
was of stronger stuff. Sudden rage fired
her eyes and blazed in her expression.

“Guards 1” she cried. “Hale me this
dog to the rack!”

Pendran felt his heart bound into

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR FENDRAN

his throat as two of the men-at-arms
started toward him with lowered hal-
berds. Frantically he looked about for
some weapon of defense:

“Hold!” came Merlin’s high-pitched
order. The guards came to an uncer-
tain halt, bewildered by this clash of
authority.

“My queen,” Merlin said humbly,
“such a course will avail us naught.
Nor is it meet that we torture a guest
in whom is the blood of dead Arthur.”

Guinevere was not placated. “For-
get ye not, Merlin,” she snapped, “that
my word, not thine, is "law. Only by
recovery of the Grail canst I find re-
demption for my sins and my part in
the passing of my liege, the good King
Arthur. And he doth not help me, he
dies. I have said it!”

Merlin turned back to the red-
thatched visitor from the future.

“Fair lord,” he said quietly,
“wouldst give reason for thy refusal of
the aid we ask of you?”

“Sure,” Pendran replied readily.
“Why not? It’s just that I’ve got
plenty to do in helping my own country
get ready to lick a bunch of other coun-
tries that are trying to make slaves of
everyone else in the world. Hell, I
haven’t got time to run around trying
to find some missing heirloom! There’s
a war to win!”

While the young man was speaking,
Merlin’s face began to lighten. He
said:

“I wot this war of which you speak.
England herself bleeds of its wounds.
Thy purpose is noble, good sir.

“Forsooth, is it not so that good na-
tions have fallen to the Devil’s hordes;
that England’s enemy seems soon to be
victorious?”

“It’s true we’re not doing so well,”
Pendran admitted reluctantly. “But
wait’ll Uncle Sam sees the light and
starts pouring out guns and planes and

his fighting men. You’ll see some
changes then!”

Merlin shook his head. “Deceive not
thyself, Sir Arthur. For this I tell
you: naught will prevail against the
forces of Evil else ye, and ye alone,
act!” s.

Pendran’s eyes widened. “How do
you mean?”

“Wit ye well, Sir Arthur. When
the Holy Grail falleth among evil hands,
then doth evil triumph! In the time
from which thou wert taken, the Grail
hath passed into the hold of England’s
foe — even though that foe knoweth
not his good fortune.

“An you wrest it from him, on that
day shall the tide turn against him and
he be doomed!”

' jpHE silence that followed the pro-
nouncement was impressive. Pen-
dran’s brow was wrinkled with a frown
of indecision.

“Let’s get this straight, old man,”
he said finally. “If I snatch this- — this
relic away from the Germans, then the
Allies win the war. If I don’t, then
Herr Hitler and his mob take
over. You wouldn’t kid me, would
you, Merlin?”

“ ‘Kid’ thee?”

“I mean . . well you’re tell-
ing the truth?”

Merlin’s lined cheeks flushed. “Think
ye I wouldst jeopard mine worship?”

Guinevere interrupted. “Prithee, Sir
Arthur, accept the word of Merlin as
mine own. Now that thou knowest how
needful it be for thine own land that
the Grail is found, have we thy pledge
to take it from evil hands?”

Pendran surrendered. “All right. I’ll
take a shot at it. But I’ll need some
information. Where in my time is this
goblet, or cup, or whatever it is? What’s
the name of the present owner? How
will I recognize it when I see it? Am I

FANTASTIC. ADVENTURES

supposed to buy it, or can I take it
away from him?”

His acceptance removed a good deal
of the strain from the atmosphere.
Some of the sadness went out of Guine-
vere’s countenance — and all of the an-
ger. Merlin stroked his long beard
with tender fingers and looked posi-
tively benign.

“The Grail,” Merlin said, “is of sil-
ver. It hath a stem both short and hol-
lowed. The bowl is round and squat;
its mouth is wide.”

“Not much of a description,” Pen-
dran complained. “Can’t you tell me
more?”

“Legend hath it,” the old man said,
“that its touch gives to the fingers a
slight tingle. This I can take no oath ;
for that privilege hast been denied me,
though I wouldst give this, my right
arm for — ”

“Okay, okay.” Pendran cut him off.
It was difficult enough to understand
the important things, without strug-
gling through a lot of useless palaver.
“Now, where is the Grail, exactly?”

Merlin spread his hands. “As to that,
I knowest not; although rumor hath
it- that ”

“What?” bellowed the American.
“Well, how the hell do you expect me
to find this thing if you, yourself, don’t
know where it is? The world’s a lot
bigger today than it was in yonur time,
mister, and ”

“Patience!” Merlin interrupted. “I
can help thee somewhat. Mayhap the
Grail canst be found in Gaul; thus did
4t seem to me. It sat with other articles
of metal upon a ledge of gleaming
wood, behind some odd stone through
which mine eyes could see. A tiny bit
of paper lay beside each article, bear-
ing words in a tongue unknown to me.
As mine eyes feasted upon the Grail, a
priest walked through the room wherein
it was. . . . This be all that I know.”

“Which isn’t ' much! ” Pendran
grunted. He was silent for a few mo-
ments, eyes thoughtfully downcast,
while his quick mind mulled over what
the magician had told him.

“Gaul,” he muttered half to himself.
“That’s France. Hmm. Not a very
healthy place to go wandering around
in, now that the Germans have taken
it over. This business of the cup be-
ing in a glass case — I suppose that’s
what you mean, by stone you can see
through — sounds like a museum of
some sort.

“But the Germans are supposed to
have cleaned out France’s museums.
And then this business of a priest. . .
Say! Maybe it’s in a cfyirch. The
krautheads might draw the line at loot-
ing places like that.”

He nodded decisively and looked up
to meet the intent eyes of Merlin and
the queer. ,

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see. what I can
do: Get me back to 1941 so I can go
to work on this job.”

JV/TERLIN smiled, and he and Guine-
vere exchanged quick glances.
The young woman nodded slightly, and
the old man turned back to the visitor.

“Think ye, my lord, that we woulclst
let thee go forth on a mission so fraught
with danger, yet not see thee seemly
armed? Not so! Into thy hand shall
King Arthur’s own sword be placed;
thus shall no harm come to thee.”
Pendran grinned. “Thanks, Merlin,
but I’m afraid a sword wouldn’t be of
much use. Not against machine guns
and hand grenades and such modern
cultural improvements!”

“Even against such,” Merlin replied
proudly, “will Arthur’s sword prevail,
I ween. Let thine own eyes give an-
swer.”

He motioned to a pair of nearby
men-at-arms and said: “Get thee hence

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

and fetch Excalibur! ”

The two men bowed and left — to re-
turn within a few minutes, bearing be-
tween them a long, gleaming sword of
such size and weight that one alone
could not handle it. They brought it
up to the top of the dais and placed it
gently at Guinevere’s feet.

The sword was a beautiful example
of an armorer’s craft. It was between
four and five feet long, double-edged
and pointed, with a hilt large enough
for both hands. The blade was of
burnished steel that shone brightly in
the light; the hilt was of beaten gold
and studded with near -precious gems.
The entire weapon was both lovely and
lethal.

Pendran stared at it with wide eyes.
Merlin said, “Take up thy sword, Sir
Arthur, that ye may confound those
evil folk who hold the Grail!”

Obediently the young man bent,
wrapped both hands about the handle
and, by a mighty effort, succeeded in
lifting the sword from the floor.

He let it sink back almost at once.
“Hunh unh! Too heavy! I’m no
sword-slinging stalwart like my revered
ancestor. Thanks just the same, Mer-
lin, but I’ll stick to tommy-guns.”

“Marry!” said the old magician, “the
veriest page of the court can outlift
thee. For look ye, Sir Arthur, yon
sword is of feather lightness — yea, even
more so. For it floateth upon empty
air!”

Whereupon, he gestured with his
hands and the sword called Excalibur
rose lightly into the air and hung there,
suspended between Pendran and the
seated queen!

The young American let out a star-
tled gasp of pure amazement and re-
coiled so sharply that the two nearby
men-at-arms grasped his arms to pre-
vent hiip from falling.

“An thou art without fear,” Merlin

remarked lightly, his lips quivering to
match the smiles of the queen and her
attendants, “thou mayest set thy hand
upon the sword and note its lack of
weight.”

^"MNGERLY Pendran reached out
an unsteady hand and closed his
fingers about the rippled-gold hilt. He
made a few experimental passes in the
air, the sword following his direction
as though it were fashioned of paste-
board.

“Not bad,” he admitted wonderingly.
“Blade seems pretty sharp; might be
useful for digging trenches, at that.”

“Test its edge against yon stone,”
Merlin invited, pointing to the corner
of the marble dais.

Pendran was aghast. “No sense to
that. It might chip the steel — or blunt
it.”

“Fear not. Excalibur be equal to
the task.”

With obvious reluctance, Pendran
took a half-hearted swipe at the edge
of the gleaming marble. Like a hot
knife through butter, Excalibur sliced
deep into the rock, then came out as
easily as the astounded young man
jerked it free.

He stood there, the sword dangling
loosely in his fingers, and stared at the
deep, narrow groove the blade had left.

Merlin’s gentle voice roused him.
“Thou are content, Sir Arthur, that
this be no common sword?”

Pendran shook off his bewildered
state of mind. “Yeah. Yeah. Sure.”
His hand trembled slightly as he offered
the glittering weapon to the old man.
“Here,” he added uncertainly, “you
better keep this thing. I’m liable to
hurt somebody with it.”

Surprisingly, Merlin made no pro-
test. He accepted the sword and
handed it to one of the waiting men-at-
arms.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Peradventure,” he said, “thy head
is filled to bursting with wonder at
what .thou hast seen this day. Even
more wonders may be revealed to thee
anon.”

And having given that vague proph-
ecy, he turned to the lovely queen and
respectfully inclined his head.

“An' it please thee, my lady,” he
murmured, “I shall return Sir Arthur
unto the future, from whence he was
summoned.”

Guinevere rose from her chair and
extended a slim hand to Pendran. “I
give thee God speed, Sir Arthur,” she
said softly. “As thou lovest thine own
land, complete thy mission eftsoons,
that England may bleed no more.”
Pendran, hardly aware of his act,
bent and kissed her fingers. He was re-
warded by a ravishing smile; then, with
her attendants about her, Guinevere
swept -regally from the room.

Wordlessly Pendran followed the old
man. back to the flight of steps leading'
down to the underground room where
the former had first made his appear-
ance in the Sixth Century. Within
the chamber Merlin said:

“Resume thy sleeping garments, Sir
Arthur, and return to thy pallet. When
next thou waken, Guinevere and Merlin
and the court of dead King Arthur will
be as a well-remembered dream. Yet
willst thou know it to be no dream, nor
no dream is the mission thou hath vowed
to complete. . Good den, my lord.”
With Merlin and his burning torch
gone, and the door closed, Pendran un-
dressed in the dark, slipped into his
pajamas and crawled onto the pallet.
His mind was in so great a turmoil that
he was confident sleep would be slow
in coming. To his surprise, however,
he had no sooner stretched out his sud-
denly weary body than a heavy lassi-
tude began to steal through his mind,
blotting out his thoughts and pressing

against his eyes. Unconsciously :he'
sought to fight against it — but to ho
avail., There followed a breath-taking
sensation of falling and/he kne\V
no more.

CHAPTER IV
Mission in the Night

' JpHE white-haired, stoop-shouldered
man brought his battered bicycle to
a wavering halt in front of Carignan’s
sole chemist’s shop. He dismounted
stiffly, propped his. vehicle against a
sidewalk rubbish receptacle, and began
wearily to brush the dust from his
travel-stained clothing.

“Ah, good morning, monsieur.” ■. It
was little, wizened Henri Mondet, the
chemist shop proprietor, who called the
greeting, from his doorway. He. crossed
the sidewalk leisurely, the warm sun
glinting from his completely bald head,
a wisp of smoke trailing from the evil-
smelling briar in his tight-lipped mouth.
“Traveling is -a dusty business these
days, eh?”

The stranger nodded in a friendly
manner. “And dust dries the throat,”
he amended. “I have pedaled from
Montmedy — fifteen kilometers — since
sun-up, and not being so young as I’d
like to be, I feel the strain.”

He stopped speaking to scan thought-
fully the twin row of small shops com-
prising Carignan’s principal street, then
added: “Perhaps you can recommend
a respectable estammet . where one might
obtain a cold bottle of, say, Croix
D’Or.”

A peculiar gleam flashed into Mon-
det’s black eyes, to disappear immedi-
ately. “Of course — of ’28 vintage, per-
haps?”

The two men smiled together in per-
fect understanding. The stranger said,
“Exactly. The very year I had in mind.

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

By the way, I am Robert Hermont.”
“Henri Mondet,” said the little chem-
ist, and-they shook hands gravely.

“I can recommend the wine shop of
Jules Levrais,” Mondet went on. “Also,
one may obtain lodging above his shop
if one plans to remain in Carignan for
a few days.”

Hermont tugged at his lower lip and
appeared to meditate. “It is a thought,”
he admitted. “A day’s rest in so pleas-
ant a setting would be most welcome.”
He righted his bicycle and straddled
the seat. “If monsieur would kindly
point out the wine shop, I shall avail
myself of his kind suggestion.”

The chemist pointed to the next cross
street a hundred feet or so ahead of
where they stood. “Turn right at the
corner,” he directed, “and continue for
half a square. On the left you will
see a white signboard bearing the words,
‘Jules Levrais — Fine Wines’, in red let-
ters. You may say that I directed you
to him.”

Hermont set his feet to the pedals.
“ Merci , monsieur. I bid you bon jour”
“Bon jour , Monsieur Hermont.”
..Puffing calmly at his reeking pipe,
Henri Mondet watched the stooped
shoulders and uncovered white hair of
the elderly stranger until the bicycle
carried him out of sight around the
designated corner. Then, his thin
bloodless lips tightening still more, he
turned and went back into his shop.

While, in the doorway of the small
restaurant across the way, Gruppen-
fuehrer Fredrich von Lemske gazed
thoughtfully at the cloudless sky and
rubbed his freshly shaven jowls.

r jpHE port was good and the fishcakes
excellent. Robert Hermont finished
the last morsel on his plate, drained his
glass and pushed away the dishes with
a sigh of contentment.

Jules Levraiis, a burly ox of a man

with a thick mane of black hair the
texture of a horse’s tail, and a bristling
moustache to match, shifted his bulk
more comfortably in a chair across from
Hermont and dug a thick-fingered hand
into the vest pocket of his wrinkled
black suit. With an elaborate gesture,
he whipped out two cigars as black
and as oily as sin itself.

“A full belly demands the solace
of good tobacco, eh, Monsieur Her-
mont?” he growled hospitably, handing
one of the cigars to his companion and
thrusting the other a quarter-length
into his own wide mouth.

Hermont accepted a light and leaned
back to puff contentedly at the strong
weed. A naked bulb above the table
furnished the only light within the small
room, the deepening dusk outside being
cut off by the tightly drawn shades at
the two windows.

“It must be close to' the time our
friends are to arrive,” Hermont ob-
served, breaking a brief silence.

Levrais scooped a thick, silver-cased
watch from another of his vest pockets
and squinted at the dial. “It is well
after eight. Perhaps another ten min-
utes.”

He proved an excellent prophet; for
exactly ten minutes later a bell tinkled
faintly in the outer room, denoting that
someone had entered the shop. Levrais
rose and left the inner room, to reap-
pear a moment later, followed by Henri
Mondet, the village chemist, and a
stocky-framed, square-jawed man of in-
determinate age. The latter was intro-
duced to Hermont as Pierre Delme-
court, a farmer.

With the brisk certainty of a leader,
Robert Hermont took charge of the
meeting. He said, “Bon soir to Del-
mecourt, and motioned to the new-
comers to pull chairs up to the table.
That done, he raised his bushy brows
at Levrais and said:

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“We are in no danger of being dis-
turbed or overheard, monsieur?”

“I think not, Hermont,” the wine
seller growled. “My son is minding the
shop, and Bruel is patroling the street
outside these windows.”

“That should be adequate Mes-
sieurs, each of you knows why he is
here. As members of the French Un-
derground Movement it is our duty —
and pleasure — to obstruct and destroy
the invader of our country. Our lives
and the lives of our families are pledged
to that cause.

“Tonight, le bon Dieu has given us
a glorious opportunity to strike the Ger-
mans a terrible blow. Four members of
the Gestapo are in Carignan. One of
them is the notorious Gruppenjuehrer
von Lemske. The number of innocent
Frenchmen whose deaths he has caused,
directly or indirectly, is staggering.
Only yesterday- morning he brutally
slew a man in this village — a man who,
while no Frenchman, was undoubtedly
an enemy of Germany, and therefore
our friend.”

They were hanging on his words,
their- faces flushed, their eyes aglow with
the fervor of madmen — or patriots.

“Tonight, von Lemske and his, men
are dining with the ardent German sym-
pathizer, Mayor Charles Benouvre.
They are expected to leave his home
quite late to return to their rooms at
the Hotel Royale. And on the way
they must pass the place where one
of their own bombs blew a house to
bits a year ago.”

“ Oui murmured Mondet; “the home
of Madame Beauren, whose husband
died at Verdun in the other war. The
bomb killed her and her daughter-in-
law and the two grand-children. f A bas
V Allemand!”

Hermont nodded. “They shall be
avenged,” he declared. “They and all
those others whose blood fouls von

Lemske’s fingers. For we four shall
lie amid those ruins and wait for them
to go by. And there they will die with
good French bullets in their rotten
bodies!”

“They may take some of us with
them,” Delmecourt said. There was
nothing of fear in the remark;, it was
merely an observation.

“For France,” retorted . Mondet, “it
will be a bon marchi !”

All of them smiled grimly at the
words. It would be a good bargain,
truly, even if they killed only von
Lemske and lost their own lives in the
act.

“We shall wait another hour,” Her-
mont decided. “Then, one at a time,
we shall leave here and go to the ren-
dezvous.”

“Guns ?” Delmecourt began
slowly.

“Levrais will give each a pistol upon
leaving. We don’t want them in our
pockets while we are sitting here. We
might possibly have visitors; what kind
of reputation would four peaceable
Frenchmen have left if they were found
to be bearing arms?”

He stretched his long frame luxuri-
ously as though dismissing the ordeal
that lay ahead, and gestured to Lev-
rais.

“And now,” he said, “perhaps our
good friend will pour us a little wine
with which to drink a toast to Success.
Let us hope that our good friend, Mayor
Benouvre, is able to ply the Germans
with enough wine to befuddle them.
What would they say if they knew that
their host, whom they think so ardent
a collaborationist, is a high official of
the Underground?”

' j^HE rawboned German in the gray
uniform placed his uniform cap
jauntily atop his close-cropped blond
hair and turned to wish his host good

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

night. Waiting at the opened door were
the three black-clad members of the
Totenkopjverbaende who were his con-
stant companions.

“An excellent dinner, monsieur,”
acknowledged the gray-clad von Lem-
ske, clicking his heels and lifting
his hand in a careless salute to the ro-
tund little Frenchman in the aged dress
suit. “Not often during time of war
are military men fortunate enough to
enjoy such food.”

“The privilege has been mine, Herr
Gruppenjuehrer ” fluttered Mayor Be-
nouvre. “Fortunately my connections
with the — ah — friends of the Occupa-
tional Forces have enabled me to ob-
tain sufficient food.”

“Yes, yes,” murmured von Lemske,
glancing at the dial of his wristwatch.
“We Germans know how to care for
our friends. . And now, Benouvre,
we must say good night. The ten min-
ute walk back to the hotel will help
to digest our food.”

The mayor peered past him at the
darkness outside the open door. “It
seems quite dark, mein Herr. Perhaps
I can provide you with a lantern?”

“Not necessary,” von Lemske de-
clared. “We are accustomed to the
dark, my men and I.” He turned and
followed his companions through the
door. “Guten Abend, Monsieur Be-
nouvre.”

“Good night, messieurs.” The town
official stood in the doorway watching
his guests depart. The porch light
glistened on the slightly protruding
teeth behind his parted lips, giving him
somewhat the appearance of a good-
natured half-wit. When they had
reached the street, Benouvre waved his
hand to them and closed the door.

His wife came into the hall from an-
other room as he was clicking off the
porch light. She was a large woman
with iron-gray hair and a still beauti-

ful face. She said, “Our guests have
gone, Charles?”

“ Out said the mayor. His once
vapid expression was missing now, and
there was a quiet dignity about him
that would have startled his recent din-
ner guests. “They dined well, tonight,
Marie. I expect they will have break-
fast in Hell!”

''JpHE moment the porch light went
out, von Lemske drew the three
Death’s-head officers into the shadows
of a huge tree overhanging the walk.
Then he withdrew a small flashlight
from a pocket of his tunic, directed its
lens at the row of bushes on the opposite
side of the street, and jabbed the switch
rapidly three times. In response, the
foliage parted and two men in dark
clothing came silently across the
graveled road to join the Germans.
Both were inhabitants of Carignan
whose names von Lemske had taken
from confidential lists of French citizens
who were also fascist sympathizers.

The S.D. man indicated two of the
three Schutzstaffel officers. “Klaus, you
and Rothmann continue on to the hotel
along the regular route we used in com-
ing here. Take with you our two
reenforcements. Walter and I will take
the opposite side of the street a few
yards behind you.

“I may be taking an unnecessary pre-
caution, but today is not the first time
I have seen strangers enter a town a
day behind us, only to join up with the
native patriots and attempt my assas-
sination. And just such precautions as
these have saved my hide on three pre-
vious occasions.”

“Jawohl, Herr Gruppenjuehrer, ,r
muttered Klaus. He and Rothmann
saluted briskly and fell in behind the
two newcomers.

Von Lemske waited until the four,'
their heels clicking sharply on the

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

cement walk, were nearly half a block
away before he said:

“We can cross over now. Take care
to walk softly. Keep the distance be-
tween them and us about the same, and
have your gun ready in your hand.”
They moved silently along the heav-
ily shadowed, tree-lined avenue, their
sharp eyes catching momentary
glimpses of the four men on the opposite
sidewalk, through an occasional break
in the foliage. Other than the soft
sough of air stirring the leaves over-
head, there was no sound.

When they had covered three full
blocks in this manner without any un-
toward incident, von Lemske began to
think his precautions were likely to
prove unnecessary after all. The Hotel
Royale was only two blocks distant,
now; any ambush should have material-
ized before this.

The four men across the street were
passing the ruins of a partially de-
molished, fire-gutted mansion in a weed-
grown lot. Von Lemske, noting the
flame-blackened side walls and mounds
of rubble, smiled thinly in tribute to
the Stuka dive-bomber that, a year be-
fore, had done so excellent a job. Cer-
tainly, Germany had shown the world

what war

Crack-crack-crack-crack l
Four ringing pistol shots, so closely
spaced as to seem almost a single re-
port, tore apart the silence of the night.
One of the group of men on the side-
walk threw up his arms and fell in his
tracks, a second clutched frantically
at his left shoulder and, with his two
unhit companions, dived headlong for
the concealing shadows of the row of
bushes between sidewalk and street.

Instantly the guns of the ambushers
broke loose with a vicious crackle, pour-
ing round upon round of hot, singing
lead into the curtain of greenery mask-
ing the Germans.

^ON LEMSKE, his thin angular face
T in grim lines that held nothing of
fear, caught Watenburg’s arm as he was
in the . act of leveling his pistol at the
point where lurid flashes marked the
location of the would-be assassins.

“ Nein , Walter, you fooll” he
growled. “You would only expose our
position ! Judging from the flashes from
their guns, I would say there are no
more than four of them. The thing for
us to do is to fall back to the next
intersection and circle about to take
them on the flank. Come! ”

Running on the balls of their feet,
the two Gestapo agents fled through the
shadows in the direction from whence
they had come, flitted across the street
at the next corner and entered thetree-
filled grounds of the estate bordering
the ruined house. Guided by sounds
of sporadic gun-fire, they inched their
way forward until, passing cautiously
through a last line of heavy bushes,
they emerged into open ground at the
rear of the Beauren mansion.

Von Lemske indicated a tattered pile
of brick that once had formed a rear
wall.

“We’ll have to cross to that point,”
he whispered calmly. “Our success de-
pends on whether they have posted a
sentry to guard their rear. Once there,
we can work along the side wall and
take them on their left flank.”

The night hid Watenburg’s face, con-
cealing the fact that his usually pink
cheeks were now a mottled gray. He
muttered, “It would help if our com-
rades would do a little shooting and
keep the dreckigc HoeUenhunder oc-
cupied!”

The leader checked the magazine of
his gun, said, “Schnell, Walter,” and
darted, his back bent in a crouch, to-
ward the house, Watenburg at his heels.

Those thirty seconds in the open
seemed the better part of an hour. Von

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

Lemske felt the skin of his back crawl
as though trying to slide away from
the path of an enemy bullet expected at
any moment. But their luck held; and
when the half minute was up they were
crouching at the wall’s crumbling base.

For two full minutes they remained
there, motionless, listening to the bark
of gun fire from the front of ’the build-
ing. Secretly vun Lemske was con-
cerned at the lack of answering shots
from the rest of his men. It was quite
possible, he knew, that all four were
either desperately wounded or dead. Of
course, it might be a ruse to draw the
ambushers from behind their barricade
to investigate — a tactic Klaus had
learned in other engagements of this
nature.

“Let us move up, Walter,” he whis-
pered finally. “Hug the wall and keep
your gun ready.”

It required the better part of five
minutes for them to reach a position
some ten feet from the street side of the
ruined dwelling. Between bursts from
the ambushers’ guns they caught the
sounds of quiet voices and moving
feet. Evidently the enemy were en-
trenched behind a low wall of masonry
several yards in front of the wrecked
house itself, leaving their flank even
more exposed than von Lemske had
anticipated.

A smile of contempt touched von
Lemske’s arrogant mouth. Always ft
was thus. Every occupied country had
its hot-headed patriots who were long
on courage and short on brains. They
scrambled together some crazy concoc-
tion aimed at exterminating the con-
queror, perhaps succeeded in killing a
German soldier or two, then ended with
their guts on a bayonet or their backs
against a wall and facing a firing squad.
Imagine any German-trained group
leaving their flank exposed thus to the
enfilade of an enemy

Crack! SPAAANG!

HPHE two Gestapo agents dropped flat
as a ricocheting bullet hummed
overhead. Von Lemske, who had seen
the flash of fire from the street, brought
his lips close to Watenburg’s ear and
whispered:

“Easy, Walter. That came from a
Luger. At. least one of our men is still
active.”

Under cover of a fresh and prolonged
burst of fire from the ambushing force,
von Lemske and Watenburg succeeded
in reaching the corner of the building.
Removing his vizored cap, the leader,
still in a kneeling position, poked his
head cautiously around the corner.

Four men in civilian clothing were
crouched behind a rampart of jumbled
bricks, mortar and scorched timbers.
All were systematically pumping pistol
shots into the line of thick bushes bor-
dering the sidewalk. Their backs were
to von Lemske and presented an ideal
target.

With calm deliberation, the S.D. man
lifted his gun and trained it carefully
on the back of a tall, stoop-shouldered
man whose rumpled shock of white hair
made him the most distinctive of the
quartet. Slowly von Lemske’s finger
tightened on the trigger. . . .

And at that moment a furious fusil-
lade broke from the street, peppering
the barricade with a spray of lead.

Notwithstanding the dictates of iron
nerves, von Lemske flinched slightly as
the gun in his own hand went off. In
its dazzling flash of fire he saw a spurt
of powdered brick-dust leap from a
spot barely an inch from the neck of
the white-haired Frenchman; then he
jerked back as the other whirled about
and snapped a shot that splintered the
stone where von Lemske’s head had
been a second before.

So precipitate was the leader’s move-

FANTASTIC ADYENTURE5

ment in avoiding the shot that he came
into violent contact with Watenburg.
Had the Frenchmen rushed them at
that moment, both Germans would have
proved easy prey. But as von Lemske
struggled wildly , to gain his feet, he
caught the sound of running steps — a
sound that became increasingly fainter.

Cursing bitterly, he regained his bal-
ance, and heedless of a possible trap,
plunged around the corner into the cen-
ter of the former nest of the four
Frenchmen.

It was deserted now. Von Lemske
froze in his tracks, ears straining to
catch some indication of the route taken
by the fleeing enemy. Immediately he
caught the rustle of weeds and grasses
and the thudding sounds of racing feet
not far to his right.

Dropping to one knee he emptied his
gun in that direction, at the same time
raising his voice in a stentorian bellow:

“Watenburg! Klaus! Rothmann!
Here — quickly! ”

Watenburg came blundering into the
open, nearly stumbling over the
kneeling figure of his ■ chief. With
a low-voiced imprecation, von Lemske
snatched the revolver from his lieuten-
ant’s hand and tossed his own emptied
one over in exchange.

“Reload it!” he snapped, just as the
two Death’s-head officers came racing
across the cleared ground to join him.

“Rothmann? Klaus?” demanded
the leader.

“Ja, Excellency.”

“Jawohl, Herr Gruppenfeuhrer ”

“Quick! After them. They are
headed for the church where we cap-
tured Albrecht yesterday. We must
spread out to cover every doorway .
Wait; where are the two who joined
us at the mayor’s?”

Young, round-faced Wolfgang Klaus
gave the answer.

“Dead, your. Excellency,” he said

stolidly. “One was killed by the first
volley ; the other was wounded at that
time and evidently bled to death.”

Von Lemske shrugged. “Better they
than true Germans. Very well, to
the church!”

J^UNNING with a degree of sound-
lessness surprising when consider-
ing their bulk, the four officers bore
down on the huge stone structure of the
church which loomed ahead of them not
more than a city block distant. When
they were less than a hundred feet away <
and von Lemske was on the point of
giving the order to fan out to cover
all sides of the building, a lance of
flame stabbed from the slightly opened
side door.

The Gruppen fuehrer’s gray cap sud-
denly leaped from, his head, jerking a
startled “Herrgott!” from him as he
and his companions flung themselves
prone.

A second bullet whined overhead;
then the Germans loosed a leaden bar-
rage that drove the defender at that
point to quick cover.

Von Lemske, swearing under his
breath, felt around him until his fin-
gers closed on his bullet-pierced cap.
With it back in place on his head, he
whispered rapid instructions to his three
comrades:

“Klaus, you are to cover the main
entrance; Rothmann, the side opposite
this; Watenburg, the rear. Keep one
eye toward the roof; they may post
a man up there to pick us off_ I will
remain here.” He consulted the lumi-
nous dial of his wristwatch. “It is
11:31. Promptly at 11:45 Klaus will
toss a good-sized stone through the
stained-glass window at the left of the
entrance, then fire several shots through
to draw the attention of those within to
that point.”

He fished within a pocket of his

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

trousers and brought out a small, dull-
finished square of metal not much larger
than a cigarette lighter.

“This is one of the' new type mag-
nesium .flares,” he explained, handing
it to Klaus. “Once you’ve fired the
shots, pull the pin on this and toss it
through the window. It will explode
and burn brightly enough to make the
church interior bright as day. The mo-
ment you start firing the rest of us will
close in ; and the flare will furnish the
light for us to spot them and shoot them
down. Any questions?”

The answering growls were in the
negative.

“Gut! Then take up your positionsl”

\yiTHIN the church, bald Henri
Mondet snapped a second shot
toward the dim blotch hugging the
ground a hundred feet away from the
door. He slammed the heavy planks
to, shot the bar into place and dived
aside just before four steel-jacketed
bullets drilled neat holes through the
thick wood.

He was grinning mirthlessly as he
rejoined his companions., “I knocked
the hat off one,” he reported. “Maybe
I hit him; I’m not sure.”

“Probably not,” Hermont said.
“There were four of them before you
fired, and four bullets came through
that door just now.”

The tall leader of the French pa-
triots gave the startling impression of
having been half-scalped. The thick
shock of white hair that was his chief
physical characteristic now hung half-
way down the back of his neck, leav-
ing a close-cropped growth of coal-black
hair visible above his forehead. Due
to the absence of light, however, none
of his friends noticed it — and certainly
he was too occupied to do so.

“What is our next move?” asked the
farmer, Delmecourt, his voice steady.

“Death to the Germans!” Hermont
replied promptly. “We started out to-
night with that purpose in mind, and it’s
still to be accomplished.” He stopped
to mop his damp forehead, noticed then
that his wig was awry, whipped it com-
pletely off and stuffed it absently into
a pocket. “Mondet, take the front
doors; Levrais, you and Delmecourt
each take a side door, while I cover
the fear. Sorry we muffed this, gen-
tlemen,” he added lightly. “It ap-
pears Fredrich von Lemske anticipated
our little venture and brought up re-
enforcements. We were nicely out-
maneuvered and shall probably lose our
lives as a result. We must take the
fascists with us.”

“What good is it,” grumbled .the
burly Levrais, “to 'remain cooped up
here? When morning comes the Ger-
mans will surround the place with gen-
darmes and rout us out with a few
bombs of tear gas.”

“He is right,” Delmecourt said.
“Then they’ll line us up against a wall
and shoot us. That’s no way to die,
Hermont.”

Hermont’s smile was hidden by the
darkness. “I agree with you, messieurs.
However, the initiative is no longer
ours. Von Lemske outgeneraled us and
we are fortunate in not having lost
our lives before this.

“But I do not propose that we shall
stay here to die like rats in a trap.
Let us give the impression that we in-
tend making an all-night stand here.
In the meantime, each of us will try
to think of some ruse to get away. Then
the best plan will be put into opera-
tion.”

His three comrades nodded, satisfied.
Hermont said, “I must get to the rear
entrance to prevent a possible rush at
that point.”

From behind them a quiet voice said,
“That will not be necessary, monsieur.”

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

'J^'HEY turned quickly, guns ready,
to find Father Delcroix standing
near the altar and regarding* them
soberly. In one hand he held a lighted
candle, its feeble radiance almost lost
in the vast' blackness of the high-ceil-
inged nave.

With a muttered exclamation Her-
mont bore down upon the priest, and
before the latter could protest, had
snatched the candle from his fingers
and extinguished its flames.

“Your forgiveness, Father,” he said
softly, “but the light- made a perfect
target for a German bullet.”

‘■Of cojurse,” the priest said. “I
should have realized that. Meanwhile,
you need not concern yourselves ■ with
posting a guard at the rear of the
church. The single door is of thick
planks and is heavily barred. The few
windows there are high above the
ground and are covered with a strong
steel grillwork.”

Levrais gave an audible sigh of
relief. Mondet said, “It is to be regret-
ted, Father, that you have been drawn
into our fight. When it is over you
can inform the Germans that we com-
pelled you to aid us. They will hardly
dare to stir up unrest among the towns-
people by molesting you.”

“I am not afraid,” Dalcroix replied
simply.

Robert Hermont said, “We must find
some way of escaping from here. Since
there are but four of the enemy, so far
as we know, and as there are only four
exits, it seems reasonable that they
have stationed one man at each door.
Now, suppose we open one of these
side doors and set up a great commo-
tion as though intending to emerge from
that point. Conceivably, the noise
would draw the guard from the main
entrance to assist his beleaguered com-
panion. Then we could rush out from
the front doors and get them between

us and the church walls. The white
Stone would outline them sufficiently
for us to shoot them down before they
could recover their wits.”

The others were silent for a moment
as they weighed the plan’s merits. Mon-
det, the first to voice an opinion, said,
“It is not perfect, but I can’t seem to
think of a better way. I say let’s try
it.”

“But if the guard in front has been
ordered to hold that position,” de-
murred Delmecourt, “we should be shot

down before

CRASH!

The explosive sound of shattering
glass froze the words on the farmer’s
lips.

“One of the front windows ! ” shouted
Hermont, starting up the central aisle
at a run. “Hurry, Mondet; we’ll hold
that —

The sharp bark of a pistol sounded
four times in rapid succession causing
Hermont and Mondet to drop quickly
to the, floor as bullets whined through
the broken window and tkunked into
the wooden backs of several of the
pews.

From his prone position, Hermont
leveled his revolver at the faint patch
of lesser darkness marking the shat-
tered pane and sent a hail of lead whis-
tling through it. The vivid flashes from
the gun’s muzzle cast an eerie, flicker-
ing light that picked out the strained
expressions of the five men.

Barely had the thundering echoes
died than the fugitives caught a new
sound: the faint clatter of metal against
the uncarpeted stone at the far end of
the aisle.

“Back, Mondet 1” shouted Hermont,
scrambling to his feet. “It may be a
grenade 1”

Even as hg was rising, a brilliant
fountain of intense light burst from the
floor to dazzle the eyes of those within.

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

Mondet and Hermont sprinted madly
toward the altar, seemed only inches
away from it and possible shelter . .
Crack! Crack-crack-crack! Crack!
Mondet, his bald head suddenly blos-
soming a bright red furrow, fell heavily
forward and skidded into the altar base
with a dull thump. Hermont, hit in
the chest, staggered into the arms of
Levaris, who drew him down with the
others behind the first row of pews.

JTOR a full minute there was complete
silence. The flare at the far end of
the central aisle continued to sputter
away, - emanating an intense radiance.

Delmecourt inched his way closer to
Jules Levrais and the wounded man in
his arms. “What now, Jules?” he whis-
pered hoarsely.

The burly one shook his head. “We
can’t move while that flare is burning.
At least one of the Germans is stand-
ing outside that broken window waiting
for us to stick our heads up.”

“How is Hermont?”

The wine-shop keeper bent his head
to the bloodied shirt front. “Barely
breathing. Bullet went clear through
him, just above the heart.”

Dalcroix, the priest, who was crouch-
ing beside them, held up a hand for si-
ence. “Listen!”

Almost at once the others heard it —
a brisk crackling that seemed to come
from outside the door at the northern
transept.

“They’re up to some devilment all
right,” Levrais grumbled. Still support-
ing the unconscious Hermont with his
left arm, he leveled his pistol with his
free hand and took careful aim at the
closed door.

Delmecourt pushed the gun aside be-
fore he could fire. “Wait! Look there
— at the bottom crack ! ”

A white, vapor-like substance was
seeping into the room at that point,

slowly gathering in density.

“Mother of God!” gasped Levrais.
“Smoke I They’ve fired the door ! ”
Silently they watched the creeping
cloud of smoke grow in size. An occa-
sional tongue of flame licked into view
and the crackling sound gathered in
volume.

“We can’t stay here,” Levrais said
at last. “We’re directly in line with that
door; as soon as it burns away they’ll
shoot us down. Yet if we try to move
forward, the man outside that front
window will have us at his mercy.”

He turned his head to where Father
Delcroix was crouched. “Can you sug-
gest something, Father?” he asked.

The priest fingered his lower lip and
swept his gaze speculatively over their
immediate surroundings. He said, “The
door of the corridor leading to my
quarters is not within range of their
guns as yet. You may be able to hold
them off from that point.”

Levrais shot a rapid glance at the
small, half-open door behind the altar.
“Of course! They could come at us
from only one direction then!”

Their progress to the corridor door
was hampered somewhat in getting Her-
mot’s limp, unconscious form across the
open floor. But they made it without
mishap; and once inside, with the door
closed, Delcroix relighted his candle
and stuck it in its own grease atop one
of the display cases lining the wall.

They placed the dying man on the
floor and Delmecourt removed his coat
and made a pillow for the dark-haired
head. Without the wig Hermont was
revealed as a young man, with strong
rugged features that came close to being
handsome. His cheeks were very white
now, under their tan, and his breath
was shallow and rapid.

“He’s nearly gone,” said Delmecourt.
“A little wine might revive him for his
last moments in this life.”

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

Father Delcroix got to his feet. “I’ll
get a bottle,” he said, and went through
the doorway leading to his rooms. A
moment later he reappeared with a dust-
covered bottle and a crystal goblet.
“Here,” he said, holding them out to
Levrais, “you had better pour it. My
fingers are a bitunstea ”

ONE sound came the sharp report
of a pistol, a dull thwack and the
tinkle of breaking glass. A small round
hole had magically appeared in the
door; and Delcroix was staring with
stupefied eyes at the shattered bit of
glass stem remaining in his fingers.

Wordlessly, visibly shaken by their
narrow escape, they moved nearer to
one wall out of line with the door. The
wounded man began to mutter deliri-
ously.

The wine-shop keeper expertly un-
corked the bottle, said, “Too bad you
didn’t bring a second glass, Father,”
and slid an arm under Hermont’s shoul-
ders, lifting him to drink from the
bottle’s neck.

“Wait,” Delcroix said. He rose,
opened the display case nearest them
and removed a thick-stemmed, squat
goblet fashioned from silver. “Use
this,” he suggested, handing it to
Lavrais.

Jules used a portion of the amber
liquid as a rinse, then poured a small
amount of fresh wine into the cup and
held the brim to Hermont’s lips. The
dying man gagged a bit at first; then
gulped down the remainder without
effort.

Levrais let him down gently, said,
“I can use some of that myself,” and
took a prodigious pull directly from the
bottle. He wiped his lips with the back
of one hairy forearm and handed the
half empty bottle to the waiting Del-
mecourt.

The shop-keeper stared with puzzled

eyes at the silver goblet before placing
it on the floor. Odd how his fingers had
tingled slightly while he had been hold-
ing it

“What are we doing here?” Hermont
asked.

“Waiting,” Levrais began automat-
ically, “for the Germans to rush- ”

His voice broke under the impact of
sudden realization and he jerked his
head around to join the others in star-
ing at their wounded friend.

Hermont had pushed himself up into
a sitting position, and seemed quite
puzzled at the awe in his comrades’
expressions.

Jules Levrais was first to recover.
“Mon Dieu, Robert!” he cried, spring-
ing^ up and passing his arm about the
other’s shoulders. “You are sorely
wounded, my friend; you must not
exert precious strength.”^

“Nonsense!” barked Hermont,
shrugging off the arm. “I fainted, per-
haps; it is nothing. Tell, me quickly
what has taken place.”

But the seller of wines was not to be
silenced so easily. With a frantic ges-
ture he tore apart Hermont’s shirt-front
and leveled a dramatic finger at the
tanned flesh beneath.

“Then look for yourself ! ” he pleaded.
“There is the ho — — ” The sentence
died with a smothered gasp.

The bullet hole was gone!

Father Delcroix crossed himself.
“Deo gratias /” he muttered and bowed
his head.

“A — a miracle!” Levrais stuttered.
•He poked a finger through the blood-
drenched material where the bullet had
emerged. “You see that, my friend
Hermont? Perhaps you will say that a
moth ate this hole?”

Hermont stared at his reddened shirt,
then reached an unsteady hand for tke
wine bottle. “Let us talk of it later;” he
said, pouring wine into the silver goblet.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Now we must evolve a scheme to es-
cape this cul-de-sac.”

^yHILE he sipped thoughtfully from
the cup, the others told of what had
occurred after he had fallen. Mention
of Mondet’s death caused him to tight-
en his lips with pain, for he had admired
and respected the bald little chemist.

“Delmecourt,” he said, when the re-
cital was done, “go back to the rear
exit and attempt to learn if it is under
guard. Be careful not to get yourself
shot in doing so.”

Silently the farmer rose and left the
corridor.

Hermont felt of his pockets. “It
seems I have lost my gun,” he said rue-
fully. “It is hardly possible but per-
haps Father Delcroix has one in his
quarters?”

The priest shook his head regretfully.
“God and guns have nothing in com-
mon,” he said.

“Par bleu!” exploded Jules, slapping
his thick thigh. “I had forgotten! ” He
thrust a ham-like hand into one of his
capacious pockets and drew out a
gleaming pistol. “Here is your gun,
friend Hermont. I took it from you as
you fell into, my arms out there.”

The tall Frenchman snatched it.
“You are a jewel, Levrais. A trifle
rough, perhaps — but still a jewel ! ” He
filled the empty chambers with ammu-
nition from his pocket, and was on the
point of making some remark when a
sudden flurry of gunfire came from out-
side the rear of the church.

A few seconds later Delmecourt en-
tered the corridor.

“We cannot leave by the rear, Mon-
sieur Hermont,” he reported. “They
have placed one of those accursed flares
outside and it lights up the ground for
yards around. The guard there could
spot a mouse coming through the door.”

Hermont nodded, bowed his head in

thought for a minute or two; then with-
out a word he rose and extinguished the
wavering candle flame, plunging the
room into complete darkness. A faint
tingling in the fingers of his right hand
reminded him that he was still holding
the silver cup, and obeying a vague
impulse, he thrust it into a side pocket
of his coat.

“It is time,” he said, his tone quite
casual, “for us to act. By now the
fascists undoubtedly have taken up
positions inside the church where they
can cover our door. I am going to open
the door, step through and start shoot-
ing. Their return fire will disclose their
positions. You two must then open up
with your guns to keep the Germans
off balance so that they will not be able
to return effectively our fire. Thus we
may be able to gain the burned-out
doorway and escape into the night.”

The impenetrable blackness hid his
companions’ expressions. Levrais said,
“How many times in one night do you
expect to die, Hermont?” Delmecourt
scraped his feet uneasily against the
stone floor and said nothing.

“Can you think of a better way,
Levrais?” Hermont asked steadily.

The shop-keeper’s “No,” was a growl.
“But,” he added, “why should you be
the one to go out first? You’d make too
big a target!”

Hermont chuckled. “And you are
too wide for us to shoot around, Jules!
No; the three of you appointed me as
leader and, as such, I must lead. Get
ready; I am about to open the door.”

Father Delcroix said, “There .must
be some way I can aid in this, Monsieur
Hermont.”

“Other than offering a prayer for our
souls,”, the tall Frenchman replied
promptly, “you can do nothing, Father
— except stay out of range.”

They took their places before the
closed door, judging positions by touch-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

ing one another. Hermont, gun leveled
at his side, cautiously wrapped the fin-
gers of his left hand around the knob,
took a deep breath — and jerked open
the- door.

QUNS blazed instantly. A black-uni-
formed enemy, skull - and - cross-
boned cap at a rakish angle, fell face
forward with a bullet through his head,
a cigarette still pasted to his lower lip.
From behind Hermont, Delmecourt
grunted, said ,“N’importe,” and slumped
down with German lead in his heart.
Another Death’s-head trooper and von
Lemske were kneeling behind a pew
half way up the nave, their pistol flash-
es punctuating the wavering light of the
slow-burning flare.

For the Frenchmen death was but
seconds away. Hermont had realized
from the first that there was only one
chance in a million that any of them
would make the doorway alive. From
behind those wooden ramparts, von
Lemske and his companion would be
able to shoot down the fugitives with
little danger to themselves — pick them
off like clay pigeons at a trap-shoot.

Levrais’ gun-hammer clicked futilely
against an empty shell. With a muffled
curse he flung the useless weapon at his
hidden foe and leaped, with arms wide-
thrown, squarely in front of Robert
Hermont.

Thus died Jules Levrais — deliberate-
ly sacrificing the last few moments of
his life that a man whom he had never
heard of twenty-four hours before might
add those precious seconds to his own
life.

Hermont, his own gun empty now,
stood there, alone and unprotected, and
coolly thrust a steady hand into his coat
pocket for fresh ammunition. He saw
two black gun-muzzles trained on him
from across the church, knew he would
never live to reload his weapon — and

felt his fingers brush against the bowl
of the silver cup.

There followed a soundless flash of
enduring light— more brilliant, more in-
tense than human eyes could bear — and
which appeared to center where Her-
mont was standing!

The two Germans cried out, involun-
tarily dropping their guns to mask
seared eyes with uplifted arms. And
when, minutes later, their eyes were
able to function once more, Robert
Hermont had disappeared.

CHAPTER V
Mission with Bombs

gUNLIGHT, warm and bright, stream-
ing through the open window, awak-
ened Arthur Pendran. For some little
while he lay in that pleasantly comatose
state that comes with good health and
knowledge that the rent is paid.

And then, suddenly and clearly, came
full memory of the previous night’s
events, his eyes snapped open and he
was fully awake.

He stretched luxuriously under the
light-weight cover and ran his fingers
through the wealth of tousled red hair
on his head. “Whew!” he whistled
aloud. “What a dream!” He noticed
the copy of A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's Court, closed and lying
on the night-table beside the bed.
“That’s what I get for drinking bourbon
and reading a book, both on the same
night!”

And yet had it been a dream?
Every detail was so sharply etched on
his memory! There was nothing of'
the hazy distortion, the gaps in conti-
nuity, that were characteristic of
dreams. Perhaps he had actually been
whisked back to

But that was ridiculous! He dis-
missed' the absurdity from his mind and

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

turned his head to glance at the bed-side
clock on the night-table. Eighty-thirty.
And he was supposed to call for Mary
Graham at nine. Time for a quick
shower and shave, and a cab to her
hotel.

Pendran whipped back the coverlet
and sprang off the- bed; then he said,
“Ouch!” sharply and sank down onto
the edge of the bed to examine his
bruised foot.

For several minutes he sat there,
rubbing his throbbing instep and star-
ing in bewildered disbelief at the object
on which he had trod. No longer did
he seek' to dismiss the incredible events
of the previous night as alcohol-induced
dreams; there on the floor before him
lay incontrovertible proof to the con-
trary.

“Excaliburl” he muttered finally.
“The favorite weapon of my revered
ancestor! Looks as though old man
Merlin can’t take no for an answer.”

He bent and picked up the sword by
its rippled-gold hilt, finding the weapon
to be light and graceful in his hand.
Evidently whatever “spell” Merlin had
used to counteract its weight was still
in force.

He continued to sit there, swinging
the sword idly in his hand, his mind
struggling to adjust itself to an ac-
ceptance of what was patently an im-
possibility. He, Arthur Pendran, was
pledged to journey nearly five thousand
miles, one way, to the heart of a, war-
torn continent in search of the Holy
Grail — itself no more than an undoc-
umented legend. How he was to get
there and exactly where he was to look
once he had arrived, were matters for
which he had no answers.

Rising at last, he tossed the fabled
sword of King Arthur onto the crum-
pled bed-clothing and went into the
hallway to use the phone.

Mary’s voice, fresh and warm as the

sun outside, tame over the wire.

“ ’Morning, Art. Wonderful day for
flying. I just finished dressing. How
soon will you be here?”

“Uh . . . Mary ...”

Solicitude came into her voice.
“What’s wrong, darling? Not suffering
from a hangover, are you?”

He couldn’t very well tell her of his
visit with people of the Sixth Century.
Or she’d come tearing over with a psy-
chiatrist trailing from either hand! He
swallowed, said:

“Look, Mary, how about coming over
here? There’s something I’ve got to
tell you. Bring a few rolls from the
bakery; I’ll make some coffee and we’ll
talk things over at breakfast.”

There was a brief silence at the other
end of the wire. Then, very quietly,
Mary said, “I’ll be there within half an
hour, Art. Goodbye.”

J^/JARY Graham broke off a bit of her
roll and buttered it daintily. She
said lightly, “I’ll say this for you, Ar-
thur Pendran: when you dream, you
really put your heart and soul into it!”
Pendran reached moodily for the
electric percolator and poured his third
cup of bja.ck coffee. Mary and he were
seated on opposite sides of the tiny
table in his breakfast nook. He had
just finished a somewhat dogged recital
of the previous night’s events, his atti-
tude becoming increasingly defensive
as the incredulity became stronger in
the girl’s expression.

He took a sip of the hot liquid and set
the cup back in its saucer with a hand
that trembled a bit. “Mary,” he said,
“you’ve got- to believe that everything
really happened the way I told it. Oh,
I’ll admit it sounds like a nightmare ; I
thought the same thing when I first
woke up. Then I found the thing that
proves it was no dream — that actually
I was back in the Sixth Century!”

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

Mary’s dark blue eyes widened a bit.
She was wearing a one-piece dress of
sea-green linen, and her shoulder-
length, honey-colored hair was drawn
back with a small bow of' the same hue
as her dress. She looked cool and clean
and slim and fragile — and altogether
lovely. She said:

“What could you possibly have found
that would prove such an impossible
story to be true? Perhaps a lock of
Guinevere’s golden hair?”

He refused to respond to her banter-
ing tone in a like vein. Instead he rose
from his chair, said, “I’ll show you,”
and left the room. Mary watched him
go, a tiny vertical line creasing the
tanned skin between her eyes. It was
strange and a bit discomforting to find
that Art insisted she accept as gospel
the wild tale he had recounted. She
caught herself wondering if he was be-
ginning to crack under the strain of
trying to gain acceptance as a combat
pilot for Uncle Sam.

Presently, Pendran came back. At
sight of what he carried, Mary Graham
gasped aloud and got unsteadily to her
feet.

“Artl” she exclaimed, pointing a
wavering finger at the gleaming length
of steel and gold he carried. “Where
in the world did you get that sword?”
Arthur placed the shining weapon
gingerly on the table and resumed his
chair. “That’s Excalibur,” he told her
wearily. “The sword of King Arthur.
I found it beside my bed when I got up
this morning. Now you know why I’ve
been insisting my dream wasn’t a dream
— if you see what I mean.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes glued to
the sword in front of her. “No wonder
you refuse to believe it was a dream. It
— it scares me a little, Arthur.”

“Me too,” Pendran admitted gloom-
ily. “Also it shows that I’ve got to go
Holy Grading.”

“But how are you going to get into
Gaul — France? And even if you do get
there — even if you get your hands on
the real Grail — how will you know it is
the real one?”

“The true Grail makes your fingers
tingle so Merlin told me,” Pendran
said. “Which is a heck of a way to
identify anything!”

He stared hard at the sword for a
moment, then dosed his eyes and took
a shuddering breath. “I’m not a drink-
ing man,” he added morosely, “but I
need a stimulant ! ”

Rising, he crossed to the kitchen
door, reappearing a moment later with
a squat bottle of> bourbon and a frosted
bottle of ginger-ale. He mixed a pair
of drinks, using a generous amount of
the liquor in each, and handed one to
the girl.

JTOR a while they sat and sipped from
the glasses, silently occupied with
their thoughts. Mary, without saying
as much in so many words, had come to
accept the fact that Arthur Pendran
was a recently returned visitor to the
Sixth Century. The sword had done
that — no one could have looked upon
it and still questioned its authenticity.

“Arthur,” she began finally, lifting
her eyes to the young man across the
table, “couldn’t you ”

At sight of the transfigured face of
Arthur Pendran, she fell suddenly si-
lent. It was almost as though he had
been stricken by some strange paral-
ysis, with his jaw hanging, his eyes
fairly popping, the glass in his hand
midway between the table top and his
lips. Her heart pounding, she followed
the direction of his frozen stare to dis-
cover what had affected him so.

He ims staring at the ginger-ale
bottle!

“Art Pendran!” she exclaimed, net-
tled. “What in the world is the matter

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

with you? Don’t tell me you see Sir
Launcelot hiding behind that ginger-ale
label!”

Pendran, his eyes shining, turned to
her. “I’ve got it, Mary! How stupid
I was, not to think of it before! ”

“What are you talking about?”

"That label on the ginger-ale bot-
tle!”

She stared at it. “But ”

“But me no butsl What does it
say?”

“On the label?”

“On the label!”

In a dazed voice she began to read

aloud. “Canada Dry ging -”

“That’s enough,” cut in the red-
haired young man. “Good lord, Mary,
don’t you get it? Canada! Haven’t
you ever heard of the R.C.A.F.?”
Comprehension began to dawn in her
blue eyes. “Why, of course. You mean
that you are- — ”

“ — going to join the Royal Canadian
Air Force,” he finished. “At least, I’m
going to try to. Canada’s in the war,
Mary; they’re not going to be so par-
ticular about my thumb and my ten-
dency to be color-blind. Once they are
convinced that I know my business,
they should be willing to take me on my
own terms; namely, that I be sent im-
mediately to England to pilot a fighter
plane or a bomber.”

“And then what?” she asked quietly.
“Well . .” He rose and began to

pace back and forth in the narrow con-
fines of the dinette. “I can’t answer
that right now, Mary. In one way or
another I’ll have to get into France-and
start hunting for that cup.”

“You mean you’d desert?”

He stopped in mid-stride. “Desert?
Of course not!”

“Then how ?”

“I don’t know — yet,” he said impa-
tiently. “I’ll cross that bridge when I
come to it. The way will turn up.”

“How soon will— will you be leaving
for Canada, Art?”

RESPITE his preoccupation, Pendran
caught the slight tremor in the girl’s
voice. Without a word he went over to
her, took her hands in his and drew her
from the chair. Then he put his arms
gently around her, and for a moment
they stood thus, neither speaking.

“Easy does it, darling,” he murmured
at last. “You’ve known for a long time
that this was coming. Getting in some
branch of an air force, I mean. We’ll
run down to spend the day with Jean
and Hugo in St. Louis. I’ll leave for
Canada tomorrow.”

Mary, her voice muffled against his
shoulder, said, “I know. It’s just that
I’ll miss you, you big lug! ”

Pendran chuckled aloud and hugged
her until she gasped. “That’s what I
wanted to hear you. say,” he said. “Just
keep it in mind while I’m away, and
don’t .go marrying any of those air-line
wolves. I wouldn’t like that, Mary.”
She smiled, and murmured, ‘‘Neither
would I,” cryptically.

They cleared away the breakfast
dishes, confining their talk to monosyl-
lables. That done, Pendran took up the
mighty sword, symbolic of a long-dead
era, and regarded it thoughtfully.

Mary, watching him, said, “Going
to take it with you to Europe, Sir
Arthur?”

He grinned. “Pilots aren’t wearing
’em this seasofi. Nope; I’ll hang it
over the mantel like Granddad used to
do with his flintlocks Merlin will prob-
ably send for it when I get back.”

Into Mary’s mind, unbidden, came
the thought, "// he gets back! ” Quick-
ly she tumped away that he might not

see the tears that sprang to her eyes.
★ * ★

INLYING OFFICER ARTHUR
PENDRAN of the Royal Canadian

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

Air Force caught a momentary glimpse
of the night-shrouded English Channel
as the small formation of medium
bombers and their protecting fighters
left Britain’s coast-line behind.

He throttled down the powerful en-
gine of the single-seater Hawker Hurri-
cane slightly to hold his position as rear
cover for the bomber group. This was
the early morning hours of July 23,
1941 — exactly two months to the day
that he had entered the war under
Canada’s flag.

Under his breath he hummed the
opening bars of a music-hall ballad that
he had picked up while on leave the
night before. His mind, however, was
far afield.

This' was the night ! Within the space
of a few' short hours, if his plans did
not miscarry, he would be afoot some-
where along the coast of northern
France, This was his fifth flight over
the German occupied country, and even
so slight a familiarity gave him con-
fidence to put his mad scheme into
operation.

Not that he intended to endanger the
other planes in tonight’s raid. Never!
They were manned by his friends, his
comrades-in-arms. Once the bombers
had laid their eggs on the oil dumps and
railroad terminus at Charleville, a
French town not far from the Belgian
border, he would remain in formation
to cover the return to the Channel.
Then, and only then, would he simulate
engine trouble that would make it com-
pulsory for him to turn back for a forced
landing in hostile territory. He hated
the thought of sacrificing one of Bri-
tain’s badly needed fighters, but salved
his conscience by reminding himself
that recovery of the Grail .was worth
more to England than thousands of
planes.

He realized that anyone hearing the
details of his “dream” and informed of

what he was about to attempt, would
regard him as a madman. But Arthur
Pendran was filled with the faith that
comes only to one who has witnessed a
miracle; and whatever doubt there had
been in his mind on that morning after
his visit to the past, had been driven out
of sight by the mighty sword of a legen-
dary monarch.

Ahead of him, now, stretched an end-
less black line that marked the coast of
France. His altimeter needle wavered
at eight thousand feet — some two thou-
sand less than the advance escort fight-
ers flying at “high cover.”

From the black bulk of level land
ahead long lances of light suddenly ap-
peared and began to sweep the skies
like probing forefingers. Down there,
Pendran knew, enemy gun crews were
leaping to battle stations at anti-air-
craft batteries, hoarse orders were being
bellowed over field telephone wires to
fighter airfields, and crews of Focke-
Wulf and Messerschmitt intercepters
were wheeling their planes onto unlight-
ed runways.

Yet when all that assembled German
defensive power was flung against this
small-numbered force of sky invaders,
it must not be permitted to keep the
bombers from reaching their target at
Charleville.

^ND then, in what appeared to be
one simultaneous convulsion, a
quarter-section of Hell seemed to en-
gulf the entire British formation.
Snarling enemy planes appeared out of
nowhere to converge on their prey;
machine guns and nose cannon began to
spray the heavens with death, tracer
bullets wove majestic patterns of fire;
and exploding ack-ack shells dotted the
sky with expanding black and white
puffs of smoke.

One of these latter burst violently not
far below Pendran’s craft, causing it to

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

buck madly while shrapnel slapped
viciously against the fuselage. He heeled
over sharply, then sent the plane into
a wide banking turn that was to pull
him back into position . and found
a sleek-lined Messerschmitt bearing
down upon him froni above!

“Goddamn!” shouted the amazed
Pendran. An involuntary jerk on his
controls sent the Hurricane into a sharp
dive - ', just as the glass cowling above
his head blossomed with a neat row of
bullet holes. Not daring to continue
the dive, lest he become certain prey
for the' ack-ack guns below, he forced
his ship into a tight outside loop that
strained the wings unmercifully. For'
a few seconds blackness swirled through
his brain under the awful pressure; then
magically his head cleared and he found
himself close behind, and slightly above,
the Messerschmitt. Sight and action
came together; a hail of lead poured
from the Hurricane’s wings, and a mo-
ment later the German plane, enveloped
in smoke and flame, began its long
plunge to the ground below.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe continued
its attack with unrelenting ferocity,
while the Allied formation held dog-
gedly to its course. Pendran, still sweat-
ing from the close call, jockied his Hur-
ricane back into position and awaited
the next onslaught.

It did not come immediately. As
the minutes passed and the dark coun-
tryside far below continued to slip
smoothly into the west, Pendran found
himself becoming strangely numbed to
the insane cacophony of machine-gun
and cannon fire mingled with the roar
of motors and the screaming whine of
diving planes. The ack-ack fire from
below had slackened off considerably
since the heavily fortified coastal de-
fenses were left behind; but the search-
light batteries seemed as numerous as
ever, and there appeared to be a con-

stantly increasing number of Nazi fight-
er planes. Thus far, at least, it did
not appear that the latter had managed
to get at the bombers themselves.

Charleville could ‘not be far ahead,
now. At any moment, Pendran realized,
the flight leader’s voice would come
through the headphones with informa-
tion that tonight’s target was sighted.

But Arthur Pendran was destined
never to accompany his companions
over that target. Nor was his failure to
do so the result of some masterful bit
of enemy strategy; instead, very pro-
saically, the Hurricane’s fuel line
clogged suddenly, petrol ceased flowing,
the engine coughed, sputtered and,
heedless of Pendran’s frantic efforts,
went dead.

Instantly the plane began to lose
speed, and a moment later Pendran
found himself trailing his squadron.
Already, two Messerschmitt fighters
had glimpsed his plight and were bear-
ing down upon him.

There was no time to rail against the
perversity of fate. The American
swore with brief savagery, shoved the
wheel foreward to send the Hurricane
into a powerless dive, thrust back the
glass cowl and leaped into space just as
enemy guns sent riddling streams of
lead into the crippled ship.

For five thousand feet his body plum-
meted earthward unimpeded; then,
with the ground still two thousand feet
away, he pulled the parachute ring.
The resulting jerk left him dazed for
several moments, and when full posses-
sion of his senses returned, he found
that he was dropping rapidly toward
the upreaching branches of a heavily
wooded valley.

He clawed frantically at the ’chute
lines in an effort to alter his course to-
ward a narrow strip of meadowland
bordering the forest. To plunge into'
that closely woven tangle of foliage

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

could result only in serious injury or
death. At best, it was going to be ter-
ribly close. The blackness of a moon-
less night made accurate judgment al-
most an impossibility, the impenetrable
shadows making it difficult to decide
exactly where plain and forest met.

Suddenly he knew that he was not
going to reach open ground. Up from
the darkness stretched the motionless
limbs of a great tree, higher than its
neighbors, and into which it appeared
he was certain to crash.

An instant later he felt his feet scrape
heavily against a rough surface; he
gave one last despairing ' yank at the
shroud-lines, something struck his tem-
ple a sickening blow, a whirlpool of
pain swirled into his mind and con-
sciousness left him.

CHAPTER VI

"We Shoot Spies!"

^jpHERE were tired lines about the
eyes and mouth in Gruppenjuekrer
Fredrich von Lemske’s thin face as he
mounted the stone steps to the church
doors. The two Death’s-head guards
accompanying him likewise showed ev-
idences of strain resulting from the
previous night’s battle with four mem-
bers of the French Underground.

They found Father Dalcroix assist-
ing the village carpenter in replacing
the side door burned away by the Ger-
mans. The thin, gaunt-faced priest
said, “Good afternoon, messieurs,”
politely and went with them to the
opposite side of the church, out of ear-
shot of the carpenter.

The priest and the S.D. man sat
down in one of the pews, while the" two
black-uniformed guards remained
standing stiffly at attention near by.
Dalcroix noticed that much of the Nazi
officer’s natty appearance of yesterday

was missing; his gray uniform was
stained and wrinkled and there was a
bullet hole through the peak of his cap.
Nor was his former arrogance so evi-
dent as it had been when he and his
men entered the church in search of the
man known as Paul Albrecht.

“Dalcroix,” von Lemske began, his
tone mild, almost friendly, “I’d like for
you to tell me the names of the four
men who made the brutal and unpro-
voked attack upon my companions and
me late last night.”

Dalcroix’ eyebrows lifted. “I under-
stood that the bodies had been identi-
fied.”

“The bodies, yes. But, you see,
there are only three bodies; there were
four attackers.”

“I see,” Dalcroix said laconically.

Von Lemske waited a moment, then,
as the priest showed no indication of
continuing, said:

“The dead men have been named as
Henri Mondet, Jules Levrais and Pierre
Delmecourt — all members of the Com-
munist Party. I want the name of the
fourth man — thq one who escaped.”

“Strange,” mused the priest, “that
in all the years I knew those men —
knew them and called ‘them friends —
never once did I suspect any. one of
them of being a Communist.”

“Of course they were Communists,’.’
the S.D. man snapped, his face sud-
denly red. “Behind all these treacher-
ous, cowardly attacks on law and order
you will find the bloody hand of the
Kremlin. Our beloved Fuehrer saw
that fact most clearly; it is one of the
reasons why he declared war on Russia
a month ago.”

“I see,” Dalcroix said again.

“Of course you do,” von Lemske
said, his tone conciliatory. “You are
intelligent; one in your position natur-
ally would be. And now, if you will
furnish the name of the missing assas-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

sian, my men and I will be going.”
“Then the fourth man has not as yet
been apprehended?” the priest asked
innocently.

Von Lemske’s control slipped a bit.
“No! Otherwise I shouldn’t be asking
you for his name.”

“I see.”

“Who — was — he?”

Dalcroix appeared shocked, by the
cold savagery behind the question. “He
was a stranger to me, monsieur. I
never saw him before last night.”

“But you heard those with him men-
tion his name!” growled the enraged
officer.

“Did I?” the priest asked blandly.
“If so, I have forgotten itY You see,
there was so much confusion, and guns
were going off and bullets flying
about. .”

^/DN Lemske bounded to his feet,
v face purpling with rage. “Let me
remind you, Dalcroix, that I am not
entirely satisfied with your part in this
affair. It is quite possible that you
aided those traitors during last night’s
action.”

“And allow me to remind you" Dal-
croix said smoothly, “that I am in no
way interested in political differences.
My interest and services lie with Al-
mighty God, monsieur, and- ”

With an angry gesture, von Lemske
whipped the gray uniform, cap from his
head and pointed a shaking, finger at
the small hole in the crown.

“ ‘Political differences’ be damned!”
he snarled. “This hole was left by a
bullet, my friend; a bullet that, had it
been half an inch lower, would have
taken my life. Is that a matter of
political differences?

“Manfred Rothmann lies dead. He
was slain by one of an insane band of
murderers in a country that is not now
at war with the German Reich. Man-

fred Rothmann was a German, mon-
sieur — a member of the race appointed
by God and by Fuehrer to rule the
earth. Do you think that a single
member of that gang of madmen will
be permitted to go unpunished?

“Within an hour after the surviving
member of that band fled from this
church, every member of the German
Occupational Forces within a radius of
fifty kilometers was warned to be on
the lookout for him. As a result there
is a ring of steel closing in on that
criminal — a ring that will tighten about
his throat before another sunrise!”

“None doubts your efficiency, mon-
sieur,” Dalcroix murmured, unmoved
by the outburst.

Von Lemske eyed him narrowly for
a moment, then shrugged and said
coldly :

“I should like to look over the scene
of last night’s action, Father Dalcroix.
It is possible that some clue to the.
fourth man’s identity may turn up —
some article dropped during the heat
of the engagement.”

The priest rose to his feet. “As you
wish, monsieur.”

With axiomatic Prussian thorough-
ness, von Lemske and his two compan-
ions combed the church interior. Emp-
ty cartridge shells were collected, to be
matched with the dead men’s guns;
dusty footprints were measured; bullet
holes in the furnishings were probed;
blood stains were examined.

When the investigation had reached
the corridor leading to Father Dalcroix’
quarters, von Lemske noticed a half-
filled wine bottle and the shards of a
drinking-glass on the floor under one
of the display cases lining the walls.
He stooped and took up the bottle,
sniffed it its contents.

“How did this get here?” he asked.

Father Dalcroix, explained briefly,
omitting mention of Hermont’s wound

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

and the miracle which followed. The
German officer heard him out without
interruption, then said, “You seem to
have the qualifications of a perfect host,
Father,” in a tone that was close to
being threatening.

The contents of the display case it-
self caught his attention then, and after
a moment’s study, he reached in and
brought out one of the small white
cards plhced in front of the several
exhibits.

“Silver goblet,” he read aloud.
“Roman. Dating from about the First
Century. Unearthed from Roman
ruins near Exeter, Devon, England. .

It appears, Dalcroix, that you have lost
one of your relics. There is no cup
here such as this card describes.”

|~~^ALCRQIX appeared puzzled mo-
mentarily, then his faced cleared.
“Of course. I had forgotten. One of
the — er — Communists used it as a
drinking glass for the wine. He must
have taken it with him.”

The German leader tapped the card
thoughtfully against his fingers. “H’mm.
Yet no such object was found in the
possession of any of those we killed.
Therefore the man who escaped must
have it. Excellent! When he is picked
up, that cup will serve to prove him to
be the man we want.”

In the back of the Gruppenfuehrer’ s
mind a thought was struggling for rec-
ognition-^ thought that had some-
thing to do with a cup . .

The sound of hurried feet approach-
ing the corridor door caught his atten-
tion, and a moment later a dust-stained
German soldier in a dark-green field-
uniform came through the doorway and
briskly saluted the S.D. officer.

“ Herr Gruppenfuehrer Fredrich von
Lemske?”

“/a.”

His face woodenly expressionless,

the courier reached into a leather dis-
patch case attached to his waist and
brought- out a-sealed_envelope, which
he handed to von Lemske.

“Eine Nachricht fur Sie, Herr
Gruppenfuehrer he said.

While the others looked on, the man
in gray ripped open the envelope and
hurriedly scanned through the en-
closure.

By the time he had finished, his eyes
were glowing and a grim smile of satis-
faction tugged at the corners of his
thin lips. He stuffed the missive into a
pocket of his uniform, said a few words
in German to the messenger, who
snapped a salute and hurried out, then
turned to the priest.

“A further example of our efficiency,
Father Dalcroix,” he said affably.
“That was a message from an officer of
our garrison at Charleville. It seems
that a horse was stolen from a farmer
a few kilometers north of Carignan
early this morning. Believing it pos-
sible that the missing assassin had tak-
en it; I gave instructions that a sharp
look-out be kept for the animal. The
message informs me that the horse,
abandoned by the thief, has been found
near Charleville, and -that apprehension
of the rider is expected at any moment.”

A wave of compassion for the hunted
man welled up within Father Dalcroix
and he made no reply lest his voice
betray his feelings. But von Lemske.
had turned away and was issuing orders
to his two companions.

“Klaus. Watenburg,” he said, in the
guttural tongue of his country. “Get
over to the hotel and pack my luggage.
Put it in the car, then call for me at
the residence of Mayor Benouvre.
Schnell!”

The men in black saluted smartly,
clicked their heels, said, “ Jawohl , Herr-
Gruppenfuehrer ” in unison, and dived
for the doorway.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

pRIVATE Hermann Wagner, infan-
tryman, Seventh German Army, had
an unshakable premonition that this
night would shape the future course of
his destiny. As he inched his way cau-
tiously through the thick undergrowth
of the forest-filled valley, pausing fre-
quently to prod a tangle of foliage large
enough to conceal a human fugitive,
the words of Leutnant Schroeder came
back to his mind:

“I can safely guarantee that any
among you who brings in a British air-
man, alive or dead, will be given an
elevation in rank.”

The railroad yards at Charleville had
taken a heavy pounding hardly an hour
ago, and returning German fighter pilots
reported that several English planes
had been wrecked and their crews
forced to bail out. And Private Her-
mann Wagner was one of the group
selected to round up those men.

It would be good to become an officer
— even a noncommissioned one. Then
would he show such as Gottfreid
Schwenke and Hans Hoff a thing or
two! They would have to treat him
with respect instead of laughing at him
and making him the butt of their prac-
tical jokes.

The heavy darkness here, under the
trees, made him a bit uneasy. It would
be so easy for one of the enemy to shoot
him from behind some tree before he,
Wagner, could realize what was taking
place. If only the moon were out — al-
though even its light would hardly be
able to penetrate the thick foliage over-
head.

In front of him, now, the darkness
seemed to be lifting a bit, and a few
minutes later he reached the edge of a
rather wide strip of open ground. For
a little while he remained .within the
bordering fringe of forest, his eyes seek-
ing to locate some indication that one
of the enemy fliers was in the vicinity.

Satisfied, finally, that the strip of
meadowland was empty of life, Wagner
stepped cautiously into the open and
moved slowly forward, keeping' close to
the fringe of trees. He moved on his
toes, body crouched, the bayonet-
equipped rifle in his hands ready for
instant use.

Now an arm of the forest jutted out
ahead of him. Bearing to his right, he
skirted the line of trees, made the turn
— and came to a sudden, startled stop,
his heart leaping with shock.

Lying on, the ground in a tangle of
cloth and. ropes was the motionless fig-
ure of a man in a flying suit !

Private Hermann Wagner swallowed
hard and gripped his rifle more firmly.
There was nothing to be afraid of, he
told himself. The Englishman was
stunned; otherwise he would not be
lying there without having first rid him-
self of the tangled parachute.

But what if he Were pretending to be
unconscious? Perhaps he was waiting
for an opportunity to pull a gun? It
would not do to take chances; he want-
ed his reward and ' he wanted his own
life as well. And Leutnant Schroeder
had said to bring in any captive, “alive
or dead.”

His hands trembled a little as he
leveled the bayonet. Surprising how
difficult it was to force oneself to kill a
man who was incapable of resisting.

Shaking off his, momentary hesitancy,
he swung back the rifle butt, then
brought his arms down in a savage
thrust that sent the cold, sharp steel
blade squarely at the other’s heart.

\X7’HAT it was that brought Flying
‘Officer Arthur Pendran to full
consciousness was something he could
never explain. One moment he was
lying senseless on the flat of his back;
the next, his eyes were watching with
stunned horror as the broad blade of a

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

naked bayonet, wielded by the shadowy
figure of a man in uniform, came at his
heart with ‘vicious swiftness!

Involuntarily, he flung up his right
arm in what must be a futile effort to
parry the savage thrust. And in^that
second he felt the fingers of that hand
close around cold metal as a giant sword
materialized instantly before his as-
tounded eyes!

There followed a sharp clang! as the
descending bayonet struck the sword’s
blade and was turned aside to bury it-
self harmlessly in the ground beside
the fallen flier;, then came a hoarse,
gurgling cry as tTie point of Pendran’s
weapon ripped into the attacker’s
throat, neatly decapitating him.

Pendran rolled aside in time to avoid
the headless body as it collapsed to
earth. Slowly he raised himself to a
sitting position, his dazed mind closed
to everything but the incredible fact
that in his hand he held the fabled
sword of a legendary king.

“Excalibur!” he breathed. “I’m
dreaming again! You’re hanging over
a mantel in Chicago! ”

The faint light of overhead stars
winked at him from the mirror-like
surface of steel. And then it was as
though a fog came between his eyes
and that gleaming blade, causing the
latter to become tenuous transpar-
ent . . nothing .

The sword was gone!

For ' fully two minutes, Arthur Pen-
dran sat staring at his empty hand,
still cupped to fit a now nonexistant
hilt. He took a deep, shuddering
breath, then, and climbed weakly to
his feet.

By the time he had divested himself
of the parachute lines and straightened
his flying-garb, he was his old self again.
Now that the soil of France was under
his feet, he was free to begin his search
for the object he had sworn to find.

Long before this moment his course of
action had been arrived at; first, he
must establish contact with a French
family and request that its members
hide him from the Germans.

It was entirely possible, of course,
that he might pick the wrong French-
man and get himself turned over to the
enemy. But, he told himself, the odds
were in his favor on that point, for
most of the natives hated their con-
querors and were quick to help Ger-
many’s foes.

From a pocket of his uniform, he
dug out a revolver, made certain it was
loaded and ready for use, then struck
out in a northerly direction, hugging
the forest shadows.

Two hours later, he came suddenly
upon a dirt road that cut a straight line
through the forest. After a moment’s
debate, Pendran decided to move par-
allel with the road, thereby changing
his course to due east. The heavy
darkness and complete absence of
threatening sounds were reassuring, and
he increased his gait, anxious to find
haven at some farmhouse before dawn.

Perhaps his growing confidence made
him careless; for, as he reached a bend
in the road, he rounded the turn with-
out first making certain the trail ahead
was deserted.

There followed a sudden blur of
movement directly in front of him; and
as he instinctively threw up his hands,
something glittered in a sweeping arc
aimed at his head.

The dull, indistinct figure in front
of him exploded in a vivid burst of
searing pain as the gleaming object
caught him above the left temple. Even
as he went down, Pendran sought to
close his fingers about the throat of
his unidentified assailant. He felt his
fingers brush helplessly against cloth;
then a vortex of agony sucked con-
sciousness from his mind and he knew

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

no more

r jpHERE was a hard lump pressing
against his .chest. Without open-
ing his eyes, he tried to draw away
from contact with whatever was goug-
ing him; but the movement sent nause-
ating pain through his hurt head and
he gave up the attempt.

Little by little the throbbing ache
began to leave his temples, until finally
he dared to open his eyes. In the gray-
ness of dawn's first light he made out
the rows of trees bordering the road.

Grimacing, he pushed himself up on
hands and knees and felt beneath him
with one hand until' his fingers closed
around, whatever it was that had been
digging into his ribs. He felt a slight
tingling sensation at contact with some
smoothly rounded surface. With his
free hand he pushed himself into a
sitting position in the roadway and
brought the still unidentified object into
range of his eyes.

It was a squat, stemmed, dull-metal
cup.

“Hell of a thing to find in the middle
of a road,” Pendran grunted. He re-
membered the glittering object his un-
known enemy had used in striking him
down. “I’ll bet this is what I got bopped
with. The guy must have dropped it.”

He’d better be finding some place to
hole up before the sun reached the hori-
zon, he told himself as he raised his
eyes from the cup to survey his sur-
roundings. If the Huns were out search-
ing for British fliers shot down in last
night’s raid, the middle of a road would
be no place to hide.

The odd prickling sensation, in his
fingers brought his attention back to the
cup. Almost as though an electrical
curr

In that instant the truth burst like
a great light in his mind and he leaped
to his feet, weakness and pain forgot-

ten, eyes popping as though they would
roll from their sockets.

This was more than a cup ! This was
the cup! What was it old Merlin had
said?

“Legend hath it that its touch gives
to the fingers a slight tingle.”

But — but so easy? It was impos-
sible! Here he had been prepared to
go over all France with a fine-tooth
comb; yet within the space of a few
hours after leaving his plane, someone
had thoughtfully come along and
handed the cup to the one person in all
the present day world who knew what
it really was! Talk about your coin-
cidences !

Pendran thrust the Grail into one of
the inner pockets of his flying-togs,
slapped dust from his clothing, then
started briskly along the road into the
west. Hell, this simplified everything.
All that was left for him to do was make
his way to the Channel coast and get
word to England that he was waiting
to be picked up. The French Under-
ground could arrange that; they’d done
it for other fliers — many times.

Meanwhile, he’d have to find some
place to dig in until nightfall. The
light on the eastern skyline was quite
strong by. this time; he was sure to be
spotted if he stayed in the open much
longer.

Not far ahead of him, a few yards
back from the edge of the road, loomed
a steep, tree-clothed hill. Sight of it
gave him an idea: by gaining its peak
and climbing one of the trees there, he
would be able to obtain an excellent
view of the neighboring countryside.
Thus he would be able to spot the near-
est farmhouse — also any roving bands
of soldiers that might be nearby.

Flinging caution to the winds, he
bounded up the steep incline. At the
peak, he paused for a few moments to
gain his breath, then pushed his way

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

through the thick undergrowth between
the heavy trunks until he reached the_
base of a particularly tall tree that
towered well above its neighbors.

Pendran hesitated for a last look
around before clambering into the
branches. The faint light made ghostly
his surroundings. The subdued twitter
of awakening birds seemed to em-
phasize the brooding stillness. Despite
himself, Pendran shivered a bit under
the almost eerie atmosphere.

Shaking his head as if to dispel un-
welcome thoughts, he reached upward
for a low-hanging branch.

And as he did so, a rifle muzzle
was jabbed against his spine and a
guttural voice growled:

“Do not move, Englishman!”

* * *

TTAUPTMANN KARL BROCK, at
^ ^ his desk in the administration
building of the German military en-
campment outside Charleville, looked
up as an orderly entered.

“What is it, Louderbeck?” he asked.

The orderly, stiffly at attention, said:
“Gruppen fuehrer von Lemske has ar-
rived, Herr Captain.”

Brock left his chair with alacrity
and came around to the front of the
desk.

“Show him in immediately,^ ” he
snapped. “An officer of his rank must
not be kept waiting.”

A moment later the rangy figure of
the Sicherkeitsdienst leader appeared
in the doorway and returned the cap-
tain’s hurried salute.

The two men shook hands, and the
captain made a great show of drawing
a chair into position near the desk for
his distinguished visitor. Von Lemske
sat down and leisurely drew off his
gloves while Hauptmann Brock re-
sumed his chair behind the desk.

“Have you managed to apprehend
our quarry as yet, Captain?” the S.D.

leader asked, as he accepted a cigarette
from the box his host extended.

Brock struck a match and leaned
across his desk to hold it to von
Lemske’s cigarette. “Unfortunately, no,
mein Herr" he replied regretfully. “He
has proved himself to be a resourceful,
daring man, and so far has eluded us.
But I am confident we shall have him
within a day or two.”

There was a moment of silence. Von
Lemske leaned back in his chair, puff-
ing meditatively at his cigarette, his
eyes following a shaft of early morning
sunlight that streamed through the first-
floor window to illuminate the huge
black swastika in the center of the
white and red flag against the wall be-
hind Brock’s desk.

The captain stirred uneasily. The
S.D. officer’s silence might be indica-
tive of displeasure at Brock’s failure
to capture the fugitive assassin. He
was casting about in his mind for some
remark with' which to change the sub-
ject, when a discreet knock sounded
at the closed door.

“Enter,” Brock called, welcoming the
interruption; and when the orderly
opened the door and stepped in, he
said, “What is it, Louderbeck?”

“A detail has returned to camp with
a captured British flier, Herr Haupt-
mann”

Brock saw the quick interest in von
Lemske’s expression. He said, “A di-
version, mein Herr . It is my duty to
question the Englishman. Would you
care to assist?”

“By all means!” Von Lemske sat.
up. “I should be delighted.”

Brock nodded to the orderly. “Have
him brought here, Louderbeck.”

A few minutes later two tall sol-
diers entered, a red-headed young man
in the uniform of a Canadian air officer
between them. There were dust stains
along the front of his disheveled cloth-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ing and a bluish welt marred the skin
over his left temple dose to the hairlfhe.

Brock dismissed the escort with a
curt gesture, leaving Flying Officer Ar-
thur Pendran standing in the center of
the room. The young American saw a
tall, raw-boned German officer in a
gray uniform watching him coldly from
a chair beside a huge desk; while, seated
behind the desk itself, a plump-bodied
man in a greenish field uniform with
a captain’s insignia stared at him coldly.

The captain- was the first to speak.
“State your name and rank!” he
snapped, speaking in accented English.

“Arthur Pendran, Flying Officer,
Royal Canadian Air Force.”

“You in the raid on Charleville
participated?”

Pendran nodded, grinning. “Yeah.
Good show, wasn’t it, Captain?”

Brock’s face burned with sudden an-
ger and he glared at the prisoner. “Con-
fine your remarks to direct answers to
my questions. Insolence will not be
tolerated!”

Pendran’s eyebrows shot up as he
gave a comic rendition of astonishment.
“How you talk, Captain!” he drawled.
“Why, at. heart I’m the nicest guy you
can imagine!”

^^TITHOUT a word, the round-faced
• captain came out of his chair,
seized a leather riding-crop from the
top .of the desk and started toward the
lounging figure of the airman, Pen-
dran stiffened and his hands balled
into fists as he prepared to defend him-
self.

“Permit me, Captain Brock.”

The words, calm and unhurried, came
from the gray-uniformed officer and
halted the plump German in his tracks.
Von Lemske waved his companion back
to the desk chair. Then he took Brock’s
cigarette box and extended it to the
flier.

“Care to smoke, Pendran?” he asked
agreeably.

“Thanks.” Pendran took one of the
proffered tubes and accepted a light.
He watched the man in gray toss the
box back onto the desk before leaning
back once more in his chair.

“Herr Pendran, you are an Amer-
ican, nicht wahr?” he "began conversa-
tionally.

Pendran blinked. “How did you know
that?”

Von Lemske smiled. “For six years
I was attached to the German Embassy
in Washington. You Americans are a
distinctive people; I admire them very
much. Are there many of them flying
for England?”

Pendran smiled. “That’s probably
a military secret, sir.”

The S.D. man lost none of his urban-
ity. “Of course. Being an American
you wouldn’t tell me if you knew. Well,
my friend, you are now a prisoner of
war. As a fellow officer, permit me to
hope your stay in Germany is a pleas-
ant one. Is there any request you care
to make that I might be able to fulfill?”

Arthur Pendran hesitated. The frank,
friendly manner of this man seemed at
variance with the ruthless, cruel lines
of his countenance. He had heard
stories of German tactics: how they
were adept at worming their way into
a man’s confidence, using distorted
truths to shake his morale, causing him
to blurt out the facts they wanted in
his' efforts to refute their claims.

Yet there was something he wanted
— wanted so much that he decided to
avail himself of the other’s offer.

“Thank you,” he said diffidently. “If
you could arrange to have a few of my
personal belongings returned to me, I
shall be grateful. The soldiers who
captured me emptied my pockets.”

“That* is not' an unreasonable re-
quest,” von Lemske agreed. He turned

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

his head toward the frozen-faced man
behind the desk. “Suppose you have
Herr Pendran’s effects brought in, Cap-
tain.”

Captain Brock, masking his anger at
being superseded in his own office,
pressed the button that summoned his
orderly, and issued the necessary in-
structions. A brief wait followed, in
which von Lemske asked a few innocu-
ous questions which Pendran answered
readily; then Louderbeck returned,
hands filled with articles taken from
the flier’s pockets by his captors.

Von Lemske extended a languid hand
and pawed through the small heap the
orderly had placed on Brock’s desk.

“The gun you won’t want,” he said,
smiling; “the cigarettes, of course, are

perm ” He stopped abruptly in

mid-sentence, staring with narrowed
eyes at a short-stemmed silver goblet
which had been partially concealed by
Pendran’s pocket kit of field rations.
He picked it up, hefted it appraisingly
and shot a keen glance at the flier.

“Queer object for an airman to carry
on a raid,” he observed. “What is its
purpose, Pendran?”

f Jj^HE young American kept his face
expressionless. So much depended
on his being permitted to retain pos-
session of the cup. Surely Merlin

would be able to establish contact with
him in a German prison camp as easily
as in a Chicago apartment building!

“A good-luck piece,” he explained
casually. “Carry it with me wherever
I go. I’d hate to be without it.”

“H’mm.” Something in the Gruppen-
fuehrer’s mind was struggling for rec-
ognition. .Cup? Cup? It seemed to tie
in with something He shrugged
and gave up.

“Here you are, Pendran,” he said,
and tossed the ancient trophy to the
young man. “Keep it if you like. You

must admit, though, that it hasn’t
proved much of a luck, piece this
time T ”

His voice trailed off and slowly his
parted lips came together in a straight,
hard line. For within his mind, two
separate scenes had taken position to
give him one composite picture.

The first was of Fredrich von Lemske
standing in front of a glass display
case with an empty space on its shelf,
while he read the inscription from a
white card — words that gave a descrip-
tion of just such a cup as Pendran was
holding.

And the second scene was of a naked
man lying on a bare floor, his back torn
and bleeding from, whip lashes . a
man who, from the depths of physical
agony, had babbled the words of a
Psalm that had given solace to the suf-
fering for hundreds of .years. And
then the half-crazed man had repeated
one phrase of that Psalm over and over,
until a final blow from the whip had
driven him to suicide. It seemed to
von Lemske, now, that he could almost
hear that pain-maddened voice crying :
“My cup runneth over. Ha-ha-ha-ha-
ha! ‘My — cup — runneth — over! ’ Aha-
ha-ha-ha-ha! ”

The tortured man had been captured
in^the same building in which a silver
cup later had been stolen by a murder-
ing member of the French Under-
ground. What had become oj the mys-
terious message Paul Albrecht carried?

With a lithe bound, Gruppenfuehrer
von Lemske came out of his chair and
tore the metal cup from the astounded
Pendran’s hand. While the others
in the room looked on in complete be-
wilderment, he upended the cup, seized
a pointed letter-spindle from Brock’s
desk, and began to probe the depths
of the hollow stem. A second later
a slender capsule of silk, no bigger than
his little finger, dropped into his hand.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“So, .mein Herr ” he exclaimed tri-
umphantly, “the cup is merely a good-
luck piece! And to think, I almost
let you get away with it!”

“But I — I don’t' understand

how- Pendran began, completely

bewildered.

“Do you take me for a fool?” von
Lemske snarled. “You’re no ordinary
pilot,. Pendran; you’re an agent of
England, sent here to pick up this
capsule. Uniform or no uniform, you
are a spy and we shoot spies ! ”

r JpHE dazed light went out of Arthur
Pendran’s eyes, replaced by anger.
“What do you mean — spy? I’m a

fighter-plane pilot and I came over
France with a bomber group.”

Von Lemske smiled nastily. He said:
“Everything must have been carefully
worked out. Albrecht was hired to bring
the capsule to a point in this vicinity,
where you were to meet him by plane.
Members of the French Underground
were to keep in touch with him. When
he saw capture was imminent he entered
the church, hid the capsule and passed
the word on to the French traitors, one'
of whom later seized the cup in which
the packet was concealed and went on
to keep Albrecht’s rendezvous with you.
You might as well tell us, Pendran,
where you’ve hidden that plane.” d
Wearily, Pendran shook his head.
“I tell you, I haven’t the slightest idea
what you’re talking about.”

“No? Then how did you get this
cup?”

“I — I found it.” At the open amuse-
ment in the other’s glance, Pendran
continued hurriedly. “I mean it. This
is what happened.”

Whereupon he related , how he had
been attacked by some unknown assail-
ant while traversing the night-shrouded
roadway, adding his theory that the
attacker had dropped the cup after

knocking him senseless with it.- He
pointed out the mark on his temple as
a means of substantiating his story.

When he had finished, von Lemske,
who had hoard him out without inter-
ruption, smiled derisively and shook his
head.

“One point makes your story worth-
less, mein Herr. Since this shadowy
enemy of yours must have valued the
cup to have carried it about with him,
why did he leave it? Certainly, by
your own statement, you were in no
condition to prevent him from retaining
it. You may be sure he would not so
lightly abandon something he had
risked his life to possess.”

Pendran spread his hands. “Not
knowing the identity of the man, I Can
hardly be expected to explain his ac-
tions. I have told you all I know.”
Captain Brock, listening to the ex-
change of English words with only fair
success in understanding the rapid flow
of speech, could no longer cohtain his
curiosity.

“Just what,” he said in German, “is
this small packet supposed to contain?”
The S.D. man looked down at the
bit of oiled silk in the palm of his hand.

“Frankly, Captain Brock, that is
something I myself do not know. My
orders were to recover it regardless of
cost .in lives and take it direct to the
Fuehrer himself. That will give you
some idea of its importance.”

He turned his deep-set eyes back to
Pendran. “And as for this British spy
lock him up in some safe place
until tomorrow’s dawn. Then take him
out and shoot him!”

CHAPTER VI!

Mission Resumed

JDY SUNSET that day, Arthur Pen-
dran was heartily sick of his cell.

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR FENDRAN

It was a very small, almost barren
room at the end of an L-shaped cor-
ridor on the administration building’s
first floor. It had a heavy wooden door
with a narrow slit for a peep-hole, and
a single window, strongly barred. There
was a lumpy cot and a crummy blanket,
a three-legged stool — and nothing else.

He stood again by the window, star-
ing out at the thick growth of trees
that came to within a few yards of
the building at that point. Since the
window was sashless, the warm July
air from outside brought him many
sounds: the tramp of goose-stepping
soldiers at drill, voices shouting in gut-
tural German, the occasional drone of
an overhead plane, and — for an iron-
ical contrast — the songs of birds among
the branches. Of the sources of the
sounds, Pendran saw only the birds;
the others came to him from around the
building’s''corners.

His mood was black, his thoughts
bitter. To have had the Holy Grail
firmly within his hands only to
lose it! Not that he was given much
choice; around Charleville the Germans
were thick as flies around a sugar bowl,
and it would have been a miracle in-
deed if he had been able to keep out
of their clutches. But they would have
permitted him to keep possession of the
cup had not the cadaverous von Lemske
discovered that capsule of silk within
its stem.

He wondered vaguely how it had got-
ten there and what it contained. What-
ever it was, his life was to be forfeit
because the capsule had been on his
person.

That they would shoot him on the
following morning, Pendran never
doubted. To execute a prisoner of war
was contrary to international law, or
something, but he was satisfied that
would make little difference to the Ger-
mans. Actually it wasn’t until he be-

gan to think of the sentence that he
realized he was more disturbed by his
failure to restore - the Grail to' Merlin
than he was at the imminence of his
own death. He wondered fleetingly if
he was afraid to die — and was mildly
astonished to finJ that he most assur-
edly was!

BRISK step in the corridor out-
side roused him, and he turned
from the window as a key grated in
the door, admitting the tall, slender,
gray-clad figure of Gruppenfuehrer
Fredrich von Lemske.

He crossed the cell with crisp, de-
cisive steps and sat down on the stool.
“Sit down, Pendran,” he said, not un-
pleasantly, pointing to the bed.

Wordlessly the American flier
obeyed, face expressionless, his cold
blue eyes warily watching the other’s
face. Von Lemske stripped the gray
gloves from his fingers, removed a sil-
ver cigarette case from his breast
pocket, opened and extended it.

When both cigarettes were ignited,
the Gestapo officer leaned back, a knee
between locked hands, and said :

Actually, Pendran, there is no rea-
son for you to die.”

The younger man’s lips twitched in a
faint smile. “I’m glad you admit it,”
he said.

“Everything has worked out very
well for me,” von Lemske continued.
“Paul Albrecht is dead and the packet
he carried is safely in my keeping. I
shall undoubtedly be given a medal and
a promotion by the Fuehrer himself.”

“Congratulations,” Pendran said
dryly.

“But that is not enough,” von Lemske
went on. “Yet to be caught is that
member of the French Underground
who passed the capsule on to you. In
return for his name, description and
present whereabouts, Pendran, I will

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

(J4

rescind your death sentence. What do
you say?”

The young flier sighed. “Can’t I
make you understand that I got hold
of that capsule purely by accident?
That I don’t know who struck me down
with that cup? It happened so fast
that I didn’t even see him.”

The S.D. man shook his head sadly.
“Your loyalty is misplaced, mein Herr.
Let us look at this matter logically.
You are prepared to sacrifice your life
to keep secret the identity of a man
who will be in our hands within a few
days at most.

“Now, that man has already made
one attempt on my life. It is entirely
possible that he will make another.
Conceivably he may succeed. So, for
my own protection, I want him caught
without delay. For your aid I promise
you your life.” y

“There is only one drawback,” Pen-
dran said. “I don’t know who the
man is.”

Von Lemske stared hard at him for
a long moment, then dropped his ciga-
rette to the floor, stepped on it and
rose to his feet.

“As you will,” he said carelessly.
“If you change your mind during the
night, the guard outside your door will
get word to me.”

He crossed to the door, said a few
words through the peep-hole, and the
soldier outside unlocked the door to
let him through. On the threshold, the
Gruppenfuehrer turned to say:

“When yoh are ready for your dinner,
mein Herr , tell the guard wha. you
would like to eat. It will be furnished,
if possible. That is in line with an
American custom, I believe.”

Arthur Pendran waited until the
sounds of retreating footsteps had
faded; then he rose from the bed and
went back to the window.

“The condemned man ate a hearty

meal,” he mused wryly. “That guy’s
got a sense of humor fit for a tomb-
stone ! ”

Until long after darkness had fallen
he stood there, staring unseeingly
through the barred opening. Finally he
shrugged his shoulders, went back to
the bed, pulled off his boots and lay
down. Seconds later he was asleep.

H E WOKE with a start. So com-
plete was the blackness of his cell
that he might as well have left his
eyes closed for all the use they were.

He lay motionless, his body tense,
ears straining for a repetition of the
sound that had wakened him. Very
soon it came again; the muffled thud
of leather against wood — frantic, spas-
modic, uncontrolled. Then followed a
stifled grunt, a dull thump and
silence.

There had been a small light, Pen-
dran recalled, in the corridor just out-
side his cell door. But it had' been ex-
tinguished while he slept. It would be
useless, then, to go to the peep-hole in
an effort to learn what was taking place
in the Stygian blackness of that hall.
And so he lay quiet, waiting.

Only because he was straining his
ears did he hear the rasping thread
of sound that he instantly identified as
metal against metal. Somebody was
unlocking the cell door!

The aged cot had no springs to
creak; and for that fact Arthur Pen-
dran thanked the fates. Soundlessly
he sat up and lowered his feet to the
floor. His mind raced at high speed,
searching his memory of the room for
some object he might use as a weapon
against the prowler. He recalled the
materialization of fabled Excalibur in
his moment of peril during the night
before; and half -consciously the fin-
gers of his right hand curled to fit the
sword’s hilt — if it should appear.

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

But King Arthur’s mighty weapon
remained above the mantel of a Chicago
apartment; instead Pendran’s fingers
closed about a leg of the wooden stool
von Lemske had occupied earlier that
evening.

He heard the door open, followed
by the whisper of a shoe against the
floor near him. Swiftly he raised the
stool high above his head with both
hands, ready to bring it crashing down
once he could

“Monsieur!”

The whispered word, barely audible
though it was, exploded against Pen-
dran’s ear-drums like a pistol shot. He
started violently,' almost dropping the
stool. He was forced to swallow twice
before his reply came.

“Who’s there?” he murmured.

There was a clearly audible sigh of
relief. “You are awake. That is good
I am a Frenchman, monsieur. You
are the English flier, no?”

Pendran grinned under cover of the
blackness and softly set the stool back
on the floor. “I am the English flier,
yes,” he corrected.

“You wish to escape from here?”

“Sure!”

“Then follow close behind me.”

By means of the almost nonexistant
light from the cell window, Pendran
was now able to make out, dimly, the
outlines of his visitor’s tall figure. Mov-
ing with slow stealth, he followed tin
Frenchman through the open door of
the cell into the utter darkness of the
corridor beyond.

Whispered words floated over the
shoulder of the man in front: “Guard
your steps, monsieur, that you do not
trip on the body of the German sentry
here.”

Pendran made no reply. He knew
now what had caused the muffled sounds
he had heard upon awakening a few
moments before.

r jjpHE two men turned into the main
corridor and moved on silent feet
toward the building’s main entrance;
Very faintly, Pendran could make out
the closed doors lining each side of the
hall. At a point half way down the
corridor, the Frenchman paused in
front of one of those doors, and cau-
tiously pushed it open far enough to
permit entry.

Within the room, the door closed be-
hind them, Pendran realized this was
the office of Captain Brock. Because
of two large windows, one of them open
to the night air, there was sufficient
light to make visible the familiar fur-
nishings.

The Frenchman put his lips close to
Pendran’s ear. “A sentry patrols the
grounds between this place and the
woods,” he explained. “We must wait
here until he passes these windows.
Once he goes by, it requires exactly
thirty-two seconds for him to reach
the corner of the building. He turns
there and is out of sight for at least
a minute. Then is when we must get
across that strip of open ground.”

Pendran’s heart was pounding under
the stimulus of danger and excitement.
Side by side, the Frenchman and the
young American crouched low, Captain
Brock’s heavy desk between them and
the door, while their eyes stayed glued
to the windows.

A long minute dragged by two.
Suddenly Pendran felt the slender fin-
gers of his rescuer close in warning
about his wrist. And then the grotesque
shadow of a helmeted head floated past
one window and the second. The
two waiting men, their bodies tense,
every sense alert, could hear the rus-
tle of grass under the methodical thud
of heavy boots.

The Frenchman’s lips moved sound-
lessly as he ticked off the passing sec-
onds. Then:

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Bien! We go now I Quickly. But
with the great stealth, monsieur I”

An instant later and they were
through the window, racing lightly as
disembodied spirits across the narrow
stretch of open ground between the
building and the wall of trees looming
ahead of them. At any second Pen-
dran expected to hear a startled, gut-
tural shout and the stinging report of
some alert sentry’s rifl6; but neither
came.

And then the protecting foliage of
the forest reached out to envelop the
fugitives, and they slowed their pace
to little more than that of a snail. Pen-
dran knew without being told that a
careless step, a snapped twig, might
bring a hornet’s nest of German soldiers
down upon them.

Not until the fleeing pair had put
better than three kilometers between
them and the German encampment, did
the Frenchman call a halt at the center
of a tiny glade.

r JHHEY sank down on a fallen log,
there, and for a little while neither
spoke. Pendran could see his compan-
ion more clearly now, and noticed that
he was tall, broad-shouldered and with
closely cropped black hair. He ap-
peared to be in his middle thirties, with
a rather narrow face, prominent nose
and intelligent eyes.

Pendran said lightly: “Well, looks
like we gave ’em the slip. Thanks for
saving me from a nasty mess, mister.”

White teeth flashed in a broad smile.
“I am Robert Hermont, monsieur. And
you are American, not English, n’est-ce
pas?”

Pendran grinned; “It must stick out
all over me! Even the Heinies knew
it. Sure; I’m a . Yank. Name’s Ar-
thur Pendran, Flight Officer, Royal
Canadian Air Force:”

Gravely, they shook hands. Her-

mont said, “With each passing, day
more of your countrymen come to fight
against le Bocke. That is good. Some
day soon, they will come in great waves ;
then will the Germans prepare for de-
feat.

“But how I must get you to my
friends not far from here. They will
start you on the hidden paths that lead
to England.”

“The Underground, eh?” Pendran
asked, interested.

“So the English call it. There will
be danger, monsieur; but our organiza-
tion has been able to send many of our
brave allies to England again that they
may continue the fight against Ger-
many rather than rot away in some
prison camp. You would not have
liked their camps, monsieur.”

“I wouldn’t have had the chance not
to like them, Hermont,” Pendran said
grimly. “They had other plans for
me.”

The Frenchman was clearly puzzled.
“Yes?”

“Not nice plans, either. You see, I
was slated to be shot at dawn this morn-
ing!”

“ Mon DieuJ” Hermont cried, horror-
struck. “But you are a fighter — a sol-
dier of the skies! Even the fascists
would not dare to shoot honest prison-
ers!”

Pendran shrugged. “They insisted
I was a spy,” he said. “It’s quite a
story, Hermont; would you like to hear
it?”

“But of course I We have time, I
think.” «

^^7'HEREUPON, Arthur Pendran
related his adventures of the past
thirty, or so, hours. Principally be-
cause he feared to overtax the credulity
of his listener, he omitted all mention
of the part Excalibur had played in
saving his life; nor did he refer to the

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

cup as being the Holy Grail. When he
came .to the part where a mysterious
assailant had struck him down with the
silver cup, Hermont muttered some-
thing but did not interrupt.

“I think, monsieur,” he said, when
Pendran had concluded, ‘‘that the con-
tents of that silk-encased capsule must
reach its intended destination — Eng-
land. And to think, only a few short
hours ago it was in these hands of.
mine!”

It was the American’s turn to show
surprise. “Why do you say that, Her-
mont?”

The Frenchman appeared embar-
rassed. “I have a confession to make,
my friend,” he said slowly. “You must
forgive me when I explain that it was
I who struck you down with that cup.”

“You!”

“Precisely. I was following a road
through the darkness. My nerves — I
do have nerves, monsieur; very tender
ones — were tight with concern; for
there were many German patrols about,
searching for English fliers shot down
during the raid on Charleville.

“Suddenly a great, broad figure comes
upon me from around a bend of that
road. It is a German soldier; if I shoot
him, his friends will hear the shot and
come running. Even as I am think-
ing, my hand acts. It goes into my
pocket, comes out with the cup and
strikes down the German soldier. So
hard do I strike that the metal cup is
knocked from my fingers and I run
rapidly away without stopping to re-
trieve it.

“And only now do I learn that it was
no Boche I struck down; it was youl
I offer my humble apologies, monsieur.”

“Forget it,” Pendran said, grinning.
“If you had been thoughtless enough
to use your gun, instead of the cup, I
would not be alive now.”

He sobered abruptly as a thought

came to him; “I’m afraid I have an-
other surprise for you, Hermont,” he
said slowly.

“Yes?”

“I shall not be able to meet your
friends of the Underground tonight —
rather, this morning.”

Hermont stiffened with alarm. “But,
monsieur, you must! It will be fatal
for you to remain at large; the Ger-
mans would have you back in their
hands within hours.”

Arthur Pendran shrugged. “I must
chance that,” he declared. “There is
something back at the German encamp-
ment that I must go b^ck for — some-
thing very' important to the Allied
cause.”

The Frenchman tossed up his hands
in a typically Gallic gesture. “But of
course! The mysterious capsule. Did
I not say that it must reach its ' true
destination? Already I have made
plans to regain possession of it.”

“Not that alone,” the American said.
“There is something else.”

“Yes?”

For a long moment Pendran was si-
lent. He realized the time had come
for him to take another into his confi-

dence, to explain the true significance
of the silver cup. His materialistic
mind rebelled at voicing words that
probably would brand him a madman.
Yet it seemed he had no alternative;
for without • Hermont’s assistance he
could hardly hope to get back the Grail.

A ND so he told Hermont the entire
story, holding back nothing. As
he spoke, his listener’s expression
slowly changed from open wonder to
frank incredulity. Pendran went dog-
gedly on to the finish, then settled back
and waited for either laughter or con-
tempt. Calmly he met the Frenchman’s
wide-eyed gaze. Then :

“Moti Dieul” Hermont breathed.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“That explains everything. Yours Is a
sublime mission, Monsieur Pendran;
now it is my mission as well.”

“You believe my story, then?” Pen-
dran asked simply.

“But of course! Did not the Cup of
God twice save my life only two nights
ago?”

Pendran’s jaw sagged. “What do
you mean?”

“Just what I have said,” Hermont
said impressively. “Two nights ago,
my American friend, a group of my
countrymen and I fought a battle with
a band of Gestapo agents and their
leader, the infamous Fredrich von
Lemske. The battle took place at a
church in the village of Carignan, not
far from here. During its course, I was
struck by a bullet that passed through
my body less than an inch" from my
heart. I was as good as dead.

“To comfort my last minutes of life,
the good priest of the church brought
me wine, serving it in a silver cup
which he took from a display case.
Then we discovered the bullet wound
was gone!

“In the heat of battle, the miracle
was forgotten. Unconsciously I slipped
the cup into one of my pockets. Not
long after, my companions and I made
a final effort to escape the Hun’s trap.
Those with me died as heroes ; and Ger-
man fingers were tightening on triggers
to kill me. I had braced my body for
the shock of death, when suddenly the
two remaining Germans threw up their
arms and covered their eyes as if
blinded by some awful light. I could
not understand their actions, monsieur,
for I saw nothing to account for such
behavior. But I did not wait to investi-
gate, but instead fled into the night.”

“In other words,” the flier said in an
awed voice, “the Grail saved you.”

“So it would seem, Monsieur Pen-
dran.”

For a little while there was silence
in the forest-locked glade. Above them
the heavy clouds began to break up arid
a silvery half moon sent shafts of light
to dispel the opaque shadows of the
night.

Finally. Pendran said, “Now you un-
derstand why I must go back there.”

The Frenchman thought it over.
Then:

“No. We cannot chance it. Even
now they may have found the body of
the dead guard and discovered that his
slayer is wearing his uniform. For us
to return now might mean our capture.

“No, we must be cunning, my young
friend. We must outwit the very in-
telligent Fredrich von Lemske. And
this is how I think it can be done .

CHAPTER VIII v

The Cup end the Sword

TC^NUCKLES beating a frantic tattoo
against the door of his sleeping
quarters roused Gruppenjuehrer Fred-
rich von Lemske from the depths of
sleep. He tossed back the light blan-
ket and bounded out of bed, appearing,
in the faint light of early dawn, even
thinner and taller in striped pajamas.

When he unlocked and opened the
door, he found Louderbeck, Captain
Brock’s orderly, standing in the corri-
dor. The orderly’s face was white and
drawn, and the hand he lifted in salute
was trembling.

“ Hauptmann Brock’s compliments,
Herr Gruppenjuehrer /’ he said hoarse-
ly, “and would you come to his office
at your earliest convenience?”

“Certainly,” von Lemske said affa-
bly. “He is preparing to execute the
British flier, I suppose?”

“The — the captain did not say, Herr
Gruppenfeuhrer” the orderly stam-
mered.

Von Lemske eyed sharply the oth-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

er’s. trembling hands and pallid fea-
tures. Something, he told himself, was
amiss — badly amiss. “Tell Captain
Brock I shall join him the moment I
have dressed,” he said.

When von Lemske entered the cap-
tain’s office a few minutes later, he
found Brock agitatedly pacing the floor
in front of his desk. Two German sol-
diers were standing stiffly at attention
in the center of the room, their ears
reddened by the blistering flow of in-
vective the captain had poured upon
them.

At the S.D. man’s entrance, the
plump-bodied officer saluted woodenly
and said, “I regret to report, mein Herr,
that the British airman has escaped.”

Von Lemske, his bony face expres-
sionless, stared, at the speaker for a
moment, then crossed the room and sat
down on a straight-backed chair.

“How did this happen, Brock?” he
asked quietly.

The captain’s round cheeks were
mottled with color. He said, “It is not
altogether clear. When the guards
went to get the American, they found
the sentry dead. He had been stran-
gled and his uniform removed. The
cell door was open and our prisoner
missing.”

“It seems unlikely that he could
have escaped without help,” von Lem-
ske said. He pushed out his long legs
and regarded the tips of his polished
boots. “There must have been an ac-
complice.”

“My~own thought in the matter,”
Brock said. He jerked his bullet head
toward the two soldiers standing at at-
tention. “These dunderheads patrol ed
the grounds about the building last
night. They swear no one entered or
left the place during that time. Yet
this morning I find a window of my
own office open and the marks of muddy
shoes on the floor.”

“You have sent searching parties out
to hunt for the American?” von Lemske
asked.

“Yes. But the woods about Charle-
ville are thick and cover a great deal of
the countryside. It will be difficult, at
best.”

“I have met a considerable number
of officers during my work in the occu-
pied countries, Captain Brock,” von
Lemske said in mild tones. “But never
before have I encountered such a care-
less, slovenly, stupid excuse for a com-
missioned officer as youl Actually you
deserve to be shot; at least you should
be stripped of your rank. I shall cer-
tainly see to it that a full report of your
incompetence is made to the proper
person.”

TD ROCK’S face had slowly turned
dirty gray in color as the calm
voice went relentlessly on. He said,
“As the Herr Gruppenfuehrer has al-
ready made his decision, it is, of course,
useless for me to comment.”

“Of course,” von Lemske agreed
urbanely. He rose languidly to his
feet, settled his uniform cap at a rakish
angle on his skeleton’s head, and helped
himself to one of the cigarettes from
the captain’s humidor.

“Have my car brought around im-
mediately,” he said. “I am returning
to the village of Carignan to restore
a relic that belongs to the church there.
Father Dalcroix must be shown that
we Germans always get what we go
after.”

The explanation meant nothing to
Captain Brock ‘ nor did von Lemske
elaborate. The true reason behind the
S.D. man’s decision to return the cup
to Dalcroix was to trap the priest into
damaging admissions by claimbg that
the Frenchman who had taken it was
now a captive and had implicated the
church dignitary.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Brock said stiffly, “Your car will be
ready within a few minutes, mein
Herr.”

“Thank you.” Von Lemske turned
to leave the room. At the door, he
looked back, said: “Don't think I have
abandoned hope of capturing the
Frenchman whom I came here to find.
And a possibility you have stupidly
overlooked is that the Frenchman could
be the one who freed the American.
I shall be back here in a few days,
Captain, to take up the search for both
men.”

•''jpHE sleek-lined Mercedes-Benz
limousine swung away from the en-
trance of the German Headquarters'
building, crossed the clearing and, mov-
ing very slowly, entered the rutted
roadway that led to the broad, paved
highway connecting Charleville and
Carignan.

While, from the sheltering fringes of
trees lining the clearing, two men — one
in the green-hued uniform of a German
soldier, the other wearing the flying-togs
of the R.C.A.F. — watched with visible
satisfaction as the car disappeared from
their view.

“We must move with the great speed,
Monsieur Pendran,” said the man in
green. “It is no more than ten kilo-
meters to the main road, while the
bridge across the Thon river is less than
half that distance. Luckily, von
Lemske’s car must move at a snail’s
pace because of the road’s poor condi-
tion; by a fast trot we should reach
the bridge ahead of him with minutes
to spare.'

Pendran looked doubtful. “What if
the car turns off on some side road be-
fore reaching the bridge.”

“That cannot be,” Hermont replied.
He thrust out his upturned hand in a
graphic gesture. “Like this palm do I
know the countryside of this province.

And I tell you there is no place 'be-
tween here and the principal road where
even a bicycle could turn off, so dense
do the trees grow.”

“Okay,” Pendran said, satisfied.
“Then let’s get to that bridge — but
quick!”

RUPPEN FUEHRER Fredrich von
Lemske gripped the swaying hand-
strap to keep from being thrown from
the rear seat of the black sedan.

“Gross Gott, Klaus!” he exclaimed
from between set teeth. “Must we hit
every rut in this verdammt ditch?”

Klaus, in the driver’s seat, clutched
the shuddering wheel with sweating
hands, the Death’s-head symbol on his
cap bobbing with the motion of the car.
“Your pardon, Excellency,” he panted.
“Once we reach the bridge, the way will
be smoother.”

“Even the pits of Hell would seem
smoother!” the officer grunted, and
lapsed into gloomy silence.

Half an hour later they rounded a
sharp curve to come within sight of a
rude stone bridge spanning a steep-
sided ravine, at the bottom of which
moved the deep, narrow, swift-flowing
River Thon. Klaus let go a sigh of re-
lief, increased his pressure on the ac-
celerator to pick up speed and
slammed on the brakes!

There was a dull thud as von
Lemske’s knees rammed against the
front seat, followed by a crackling
string of round German oaths that siz-
zled about the ears of Klaus and Waten-
burg like lightning in a cloud-filled sky.

“Are you,” thundered von Lemske,
when he had exhausted his extensive
store of profanity, “deliberately trying

to kill ” The words died in his

throat as his sharp eyes caught a
glimpse of the object in the road a few
yards beyond the Mercedes’ front
wheels.

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

It was the motionless body of a
man in a German uniform, face-down,
crumpled and twisted as though sudden
and unexpected death had struck him.

Watenburg, the second of von
Lemske’s two S.S. guards, reached for
the door, but the leader’s sharp com-
mand stopped him.

"No, you fool, it may be a trap!”

The seconds sped by while the three
men sat motionless in the car. Von
Lemske’s keen eyes bored into the still
body lying in the dust. A vagrant
breeze stirred the folds of the uniform
coat

"Drive on, Klaus,” von Lemske said
abruptly.

The man behind the wheel turned a
startled face toward the rear seat. "But,
Excellency,” he protested, “there is not
enough, room to swing the car around
that . . man.”

“Then run over him!” the officer
snapped. “If he is dead it will make no
difference.”

Klaus swallowed, but obediently he
put the car in motion. He cut the
wheels over until the left side of the
sedan scraped the barrier of foliage at
the road’s edge, but it was clearly evi-
dent that the heavy tires must roll over
the unmoving figure in the trail. Gradu-
ally the distance narrowed; another
few feet and the way would be clear
again. . . .

“Stop!”

The car lurched to a halt. Von
Lemske was standing now, gloved hands
gripping the seat in front of him, his
eyes intent on the huddled form.

“Look!” he exclaimed in low tones.
“The right hand . it is moving!”

Slowly, as though obeying the dic-
tates of a half-conscious mind, the dust-
smudged fingers contracted, and the
hand shifted as though to force the
prone figure away from the earth.

( Walter Watenburg said, “He is alive,

Excellency, and badly hurt. I can see
blood in the. dirt under his head.”_

Fredrich von Lemske hesitated no
longer. “I am getting to the point
where I see personal danger in every in-
cident,” he said, his thin lips curling in
self-derision. “Open the car door,
Watenburg; we must help the poor
fellow.”

r J''HEY descended from the car — the
three of them — and formed a semi-
circle about the injured man. Klaus
knelt in the dust and reached out with
the intention of turning the figure face
up. . .

Behind them, a voice said “Hande
hoch!” in flawless German.

There followed a brief moment of
petrified silence; then, their faces sud-
denly expressionless masks, the three
officers lifted their hands in grudging
obedience.

As for the “wounded” man in the
green uniform — he bounded lightly to
his feet, his narrow, dark-skinned face
split with a wide, white-toothed smile.

“Keep your gun pointed at them,
Monsieur Pendran,” he called, over the
heads of the captives, “while I avail
myself of their weapons.”

“Check,” Pendran said laconically.

Whereupon, the broad-shouldered
Hermont sidled up to the three Ger-
mans and divested them of their guns.
He found only three — one from each
man — all Lugers. Two went into the
pockets of his borrowed coat; the third
he trained on the prisoners, after first
making sure it was fully loaded.

Arthur Pendran came around to join
the Frenchman, gazing with interest at
the faces of von Lemske and the two
Death’s-head troopers. There was deep
fear in those last two — evident despite
the rigid blankness where expres-
sions should have been.

With the Gruppenfaehrer, however.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

it was different. Not that his thinly
moulded features held any more emo-
tion than did those of his companions;
there was even less, if possible. But
behind the fagade of those cold blue-
gray eyes was a consuming rage — a
rage directed not so much at his captors
as at himself for having been taken in
by so ancient a ruse.

Hermont said crisply, “We Have no
time to waste, Monsieur von Lemske.
Please hand over the small silk-
wrapped packet you took from my
American friend.”

He gave the order in English, so that
Pendran might understand. In the
same tongue, the S. D. man said:

“I regret to disappoint you, but it is
not in my possession.”

The Frenchman’s voice was bland as
he said, “That is a lie, of course. You
have attached too much importance to
the packet to allow it out of your keep-
ing. Give it to me at once.”

It would be to his benefit,, von-
Lemske realized, to keep the conversa-
tion going as long as possible. At any
moment, a German car or truck might
approach on its way to the camp.

Hermont’s words interrupted his
thoughts. “If necessary, monsieur, I
shall shoot you down like the dog you
are and take the capsule from your
lifeless body!”

A gray tinge crept into the German
officer’s cheeks, but he said, steadily
enough, “Since there is no doubt in my
mind that you intend to kill us anyway,
your threat does not frighten me, mein
Herr. But I am wondering if there is
hot some bargain we can make that will
give you what you want and permit my
men and me to keep our lives.”

“You are wasting time,” Hermont
said, a thread of anger discernible in
his voice. He extended his left hand
toward von Lemske. “Hurry, monsieur;

we may be interrupted at any moment.”

r JpHE Gruppenjuehrer knew he could
delay no longer. Slowly he lowered
one of his upraised hands, slid its fin-
gers into the left breast pocket of his
uniform coat and brought out the tiny
silk object that already had cost sev-
eral men their lives.

Hermont took it and, his eyes never
leaving the German, handed it to Arthur
Pendran. The flier dropped the cap-
sule into one of his pockets, carefully
buttoned the flap, then said:

“What about the cup, Hermont?”
“Ah yes — the cup.” The French-
man nodded. “One thing more, Mon-
sieur von Lemske; my young friend
desires to regain the good-luck piece
you took from him.” '

Von Lemske blinked. To risk pre-
cious time in recovering a valueless bit
of metal seemed the height of folly.
Americans, he reflected, were certainly
a strange lot. Yet the delay would give
him a few moments more of life .

They did not see the sudden gleam
in his eyes as he said, “If it is Father
Dalcroix’ cup that you want, it is in a
small wooden box in the car. Klaus
can get it for you.”

Hermont stepped back a few feet.
“Keep your gun on this man, Monsieur
Pendran, while I accompany his two
men to the Mercedes to get your prop-
erty. At the first false move he makes,
shoot him!”

Pendran grinned. “It will be a
pleasure!”

Hermont directed a few rapid words
in German at the two Death’s-head
men, who turned obediently and walked
toward the open doors of the sedan,
the Frenchman at their heels.

“Have I your permission to smoke,
Herr Pendran?” von Lemske said pleas-
antly.

The young American hesitated, then

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

nodded. “Go ahead,” he said; “but
don’tmove your hands too quick.”

With slow, almost gingerly move-
ments, the gray-uniformed officer dug
his heavy silver cigarette case from
a pocket, opened it and took out one
of the paper tubes, which he placed
between his lips. Then, without warn-
ing, he threw himself forward, the silver
case in his hand held squarely in front
of Pendran’s gun-muzzle.

Pendran voiced a startled shout, and
his forefinger instinctively closed on the
trigger. The sharp crack of a gun-shot
mingled with the ringing clang of a
bullet striking metal; the cigarette case
spun from the partially paralyzed fin-
gers of von Lemske’s left hand, and the
German’s right fist crashed with ter-
rible force into the American’s face.

Hermont, in the act of taking a small
wooden box from Klaus’ beefy fingers,
heard the cry and the shot. With a
lithe bound he sprang away from the
two black-clad Nazis, the box under
one arm, his gun still trained on Klaus
and Watenburg.

The events that followed in that brief
section of a French roadway were such
as no mortal eyes had ever before wit-
nessed since the beginning of time.

Von Lemske bent swiftly and
snatched the gun from Pendran’s dazed
fingers. Instantly he straightened, his
face alight with blazing triumph, and.
leveled the barrel at the fallen flier’s
head.

And as the German’s finger closed
on the trigger, as Pendran lifted futile
hands to ward off certain death, some-
thing glittered into existance between
the two men — something that was a
something no longer, but had become
a long, gleaming bejeweled sword of
shining steel!

r J''HE astounded Gmppenfuehrer re-
coiled in stupefied alarm as fabled

Excalibur rose to confront him, its hilt
firmly incased in the fallen man’s grasp.
And then the mighty blade flashed for-
ward in a glittering arc squarely at
von Lemske’s head!

Notwithstanding the shock given his
nerves by the sword’s incredible mate-
rialization, the officer lost none of his
courage. As the keen edge descended,
he stepped agilely to one side and
sought to parry the blow with the bar-
rel of his gun. Like flame through
tissue, Excalibur sliced through the
Luger’s barrel; but von Lemske, with
a deft motion, caught Pendran’s wrist
and twisted it savagely, wrenching the
sword from his hand.

Once again the tables were turned.
Nor did the German hesitate to make
use of his advantage. Wrapping both
hands about the broad hilt, he swung
the great blade up and back, prepara-
tory to bringing it down on his prostrate
foe.

Hermont, his gun still holding Klaus
and Watenburg at bay, felt a groan of
helpless horror form in his throat. To
risk a shot at von Lemske would be all
the S. S. men needed. Yet he must act
immediately, or Pendran was doomed.

And in that instant there popped into
his mind the memory of a church scene
in which a tall, broad-shouldered
Frenchman stood facing two guns in
the hands of his enemies, waiting with
fatalistic calm for those guns to speak.

The small wooden box, not more than
six by eight inches in size, slipped into
the palm of his left hand.

“Pendran!” he shouted, loud and
clear, and with a short underhand flip-
ping motion, tossed the box at the head
of his fallen friend.

Excalibur was already streaking
downward as Arthur Pendran auto-
matically brought up. his hands to pre-
vent the wooden container from strik-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES,

ing him in the face. As his fingers
closed about the box, the falling sword,
wielded with the full strength of von
Lemske's muscular arms, stopped in
mid-swing as though it bad encountered
a wall of stone 1

The man on the ground saw an ex-
pression of uncomprehending astonish-
ment flood into the face above him —
an expression that' suddenly changed
into such utter and devastating horror
that it sent an icy chill through him.

head, the rigid muscles under the gray
coat and he understood.

The sword, was lifting to strike the
man who held it!

Slowly, relentlessly, the weapon of
a long-dead king swung toward the ex-
posed neck of the now fear-crazed of-;
ficer. F^endran could see the quivering
fingers seek to loose themselves from
the finely wrought hilt, but all in vain.

Abruptly that terror-stricken resist-
ance collapsed, the blade slashed about

Pondron, helpless on the ground, watched the scene with awed fascination

At first Pendran thought the German with the speed of light, flesh closed
was lifting the sword to strike at him around the keen edge, and a fountain
a second time; but he caught a glimpse of blood gushed into the sunlight,
of the straining cords in his neck, the Thus perished Fredrich von Lemske,
perspiration standing out on his fore- stricken unto death by a Power be-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

The officer recoiled in horror as the
steel "blade bit deep into his flesh

yond the comprehension of man. figure of Robert Hermont before the

Frenchman could shake off the spell of
IT WAS Wolfgang Klaus who recov- the incredible miracle he had just wit-
ered first. As the Gruppenjuekrer's nessed.
lifeless body toppled into the dusty The Luger roared and red blossomed
road, he flung himself at the bemused high up on Klaus’ shoulder. But too

Fantastic adventures

late; the S.S. guard’s body struck Her-
mont squarely and knocked him sprawl-
ing, sending the gun spinning from his
hand.

The red-haired American, rising to
his feet at that moment, saw Waten-
burg leap cat-like toward the gun and
scoop it up. As Hermont scrambled
hastily to his feet, the Death’s-head
trooper was training the Luger at his
head.

Uttering a wild yell, Pendran drew
back his arm and flung the wooden
box containing the Grail straight at
Watenburg’s crouching form. But the
throw had been too hurried; the box
passed a full six inches above Waten-
burg’s head and disappeared over the
edge of the deep ravine.

An instant later, the gun spoke as
the black-garbed German calmly
pumped a bullet into Robert Hermont ’s
forehead!

It was then that Arthur Pendran,
Flying Officer, Royal Canadian Air
Force, went stark, raving mad. With
an inhuman scream of bloodlusting
rage, he tore the great sword from von
Lemske’s flesh and waving it wildly
above his fiery head, bore down upon,
the two Germans like an avenging spirit.

Watenburg sought to bring his gun
to bear upon the crazed American, but
the flailing length of steel caught him
as he turned, splitting his head from
crown to neck. Wolfgang Klaus*
wounded though he was, flung himself
at the American, only to die as Ex-
calibur ripped into his heart.

As abruptly as it had come, the mad-
ness went out of Arthur Pendran. For
a little while he stood there, leaning
on' his sword, his eyes traveling slowly
about the scene of awful carnage, feel-
ing sickened by the welter of blood
and corpses.

Finally, on reluctant feet, he went
to the edge of the ravine' and peered

unhappily down its precipitous sides.
It was at this point that the box con-
taining the Holy Grail had disappeared.
There was nothin g to be seen other -
than bare walls of rock and, far below,
the silvery reflection of the narrow,
swift-flowing River Thon.

He was suddenly aware that his right
hand was empty and he looked down
to where it hung at his side. Excali-
bur, mammoth sword of a mighty mon-
arch, was gone — returned, perhaps, to
its place above a Chicago mantel.

He unbuttoned the flap of one of his
pockets and took out the tiny silk-
wrapped capsule. Everything except
this was gone: Excalibur and Hermont
and the Grail.

The Grail. The Cup that God’s only
Son had quaffed before going forth to
>die that mankind might live. The Cup
that, were it possessed by the forces
of Good in the world, would bring total
defeat to the forces of Evil. And now
it w r as gone forever, lost in the depths
of a foaming river, thrown there in a
futile effort to save the life of a brave
man.

He looked again, without curiosity,
at the capsule in his hand. Perhaps
its contents would prove of some value
to England’s leaders— if he could get
it to them.

He sighed deeply, placed the capsule
back in his pocket, then turned and
without a backward glance set off on
foot into the west, his goal the English
Channel some three hundred kilometers
— perhaps two hundred miles — away.

CHAPTER IX
Mission's End

FEW kilometers north of the
French coastal town of Cayeux, in
the province of Somme, is a tiny, white-
cliffed bay which forms the mouth of

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

the River Somme.

On a sun-drenched morning in Aug-
ust, 1941, two French boys, Raoul Fre-
coult and Henri Bernay, lay among
the long grasses on the heights over-
looking the point where the Somme’s
waters flowed into the bay.

In a section that bristled with Ger-
man land and air defenses, where mor-
tared pill-boxes and heavy gun em-
placements mingled with air-fields and
mine-fields and acres of barbed wire
entanglements, the spot where the boys
were lying t seemed singularly free of
the grim garb of modern warfare. Small
birds poured out their songs, while over-
head the gulls wheeled and dipped in
graceful flight.

A hundred feet below the lip of the
cliff where the two boys lay, stood a
sprawling, ramshackle structure of
weather-beaten planks. Painted in fad-
ing letters across one side of the build-
ing were the words: AMBERT ET CUE
—FISH CANNERS.

Raoul, a dark-haired boy of fourteen
with a thin white face and large brown
eyes, suddenly seized the tattered sleeve
of his companion’s coat and pointed a
finger at the river bank below.

“See, Henri,” he said, “there is the
old fool now.” o

The stooped figure of a white-haired
old man had appeared in a doorway
of the cannery, standing there as
though to soak up warmth from the
summer sun. A shabby suit of black
cloth covered the frail body and a clay
pipe hung slackly between his lips.

Henri Bernay said: “My mother
often says she feels sorry for poor Mon-
sieur Ambert. The war has been very
cruel to him, she says.”

“It has hurt all the people of France,”
Raoul retorted, his brown eyes flashing
hotly.

“I know,” Henri said. He was a
slender, small-boned youngster, a year

younger than Raoul Frecoult, with
silky blond hair and sensitive fea-
tures. “But it does not seem right to
call him a fool.”

“He is a fool. Does he not go about
picking up every useless thing he can
carry? I have seen him walk along the
streets of Cayeux, filling his pockets
with bits of glass and string — even
pieces of stone. He takes those use-
less things somewhere and hides them
away, like a squirrel hiding nuts.”

“He does that,” Henri explanied,
“only because he is so very poor. Be-
fore the war, mother says, he was very
rich. But the invaders came and took
everything from him. His son Armand
died while fighting at Dunkirk, and his
wife lived only a few days after she
learned of his death. The canning busi-
ness is gone because he can get only a
very little tin and no parts at all for
the machinery. My mother told me
about it.”

“I do not think the Germans took
everything from him,” Raoul said
darkly. “He acts very friendly with
them at times. Even part of the fish
he catches and cans goes to the German
soldiers. I heard the men talking once
in my father’s store. They said it was
certain that old Ambert did not lose
all his money to the fascists; that he
must have put it away where no one
could find it — maybe in the same place
he puts all the glass and string and
stones he picks upl”

HPHE two boys were silent for a while,
watching the bent figure of the old
man as he picked his way along the
river bank below them. From time to
time he stooped and took up some small
object which went immediately into one
of his pockets.

Finally Raoul Frecoult stirred im-
patiently. “I am tired of staring at the
old fool,” he grumbled. “Let us go on.”

78 FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

He started' to rise; but Henri’s hand
shot out to pull him down again.
“Look!” he exclaimed.

From a copse of trees below them at
the water’s edge, the figure of a young
man in a tattered blue uniform came
into the open. His head was bare and
a matted growth of flaming red hair
was clearly visible. He walked very
slowly, staggering often as though from
weakness.

Raoul, whose eyes were sharper than
his friend’s, was trembling with excite-
ment. “It is an English flier!” he
gasped. “I know that by his uniform.
The German pigs must have shot down
his plane.”

“Monsieur Ambert has seen him,”
Henri said. “Perhaps he will help the
Englishman.”

They saw the old man standing very
still, watching the young flier weave
drunkenly along the bank toward him.
Ambert, after looking quickly about as
though to make sure there were no wit-
nesses, hurried to the newcomer and
passed an arm about his shoulders to
steady the other’s wavering steps.

“See!” Henri exclaimed triumphant-
ly. “Monsieur Ambert is a good man.
He is helping the enemy of the Huns.”

Raoul Frecoult did not reply until
the two men below had disappeared
through one of the cannery’s doorways.
Then he said in a determined voice,
“Let us go quickly back to Cayeux. I
must tell my. father what we have seen.”

“Why must you tell him?” Henri
said, puzzled.

“Because I do not trust. that old sim-
pleton! .He might turn the Englishman
over to the Germans. Hurry, Henri,
we have no time to waste!”

^RTHUR PEND RAN came slowly
from' the depths of sleep. For a
time he lay unmoving, conscious only
of the fact that it was a truly wonder-

ful feeling just to lie in a horizonal po-
sition on something besides damp earth.

For three long weeks he had inched
his way across German-occupied
France, following with grim, unflagging’
purpose the River Thon until it joined
the Somme, then moving doggedly along
the banks of- the latter toward its
mouth.

For the thought had come to him, fol-
lowing the battle in which Robert Her-
mont arid Fredrich von Lemske had
been slain, that the box containing the
Holy Grail might not have sunk into
the Thon’s depths, but have floated
downstream instead. It was a wild,
practically impossible hope, but better
than no hope at all; and so he had re-
mained close to the banks of both
streams during the course of his jour-
ney across northern France.

The number of times he narrowly
avoided capture by enemy patrols or
sentries was beyond computation; and
the fact that he traveled only during
the day, lest he miss sight of the box,
only added. to the possibility of his cap-
ture. Several times he had opportuni-
ties to change into less conspicuous
clothing, but the fear of being shot as
a spy were he found in anything other
than his ojvn blue uniform kept him
from doing so.

Well, all that was behind him, now.
The Holy Grail was lost and he might
as well accept the fact with the best
grace he could muster. Now he must
concentrate on getting back to England
with the silk-encased capsule Hermont
had taken from the S. D. man. The
strange old man who had taken him into
the tumble-down canning factory and
fed him and given him a cot, had said
something about getting hirn safely
across the Channel. Exactly what had
been said was not altogether clear; he
had been so completely exhausted that
words were only instruments of tor-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

ture to keep him awake.

A wavering light against his closed
eye-lids interrupted his thoughts; and
he opened them to find the bent figure
of Frangois Ambert, a lighted candle
in his hand, standing beside the cot.

“Good evening, monsieur,” he said,
speaking in heavily accented English.
“I came in to awaken you.”

“Evening, hunh?” Pendran swung
his feet to the floor and sat up, running
his fingers across the heavy growth of
red bristles covering his cheeks. “So
I’ve slept the whole day through?
Well, I guess I needed it.”

Ambert stuck the candle into a tin
holder on a nearby table. The waver-
ing flame picked out row upon row of
neatly stacked, unlabeled cans on
shelves lining the tiny room.

“You have been sleeping for two
days and a night, monsieur,” he said,
exposing yellowed teeth in a wide grin.
“Almost I thought you were dead.
Only your snores reassured me!

“But meanwhile I have not been idle.
Arrangements have been completed;
you are to leave for England at once!”
Pendran stared at the old man in
round-eyed astonishment. “Just — like
— that!” he gasped. “Is it so easy to
get out from under the Germans’
noses?”

“Oh, it will be difficult enough,” Am-
bert said. “You are to make the voyage
alone; and since your craft is to be only
a light dory, you must pray that the
weather remains clear.”

“You mean I’ve got to row my way
across?” Pendran demanded, aghast.

The old man’s smile broadened. “No,
monsieur. It is a power boat, furnished
by the local leader of the French Under-
ground — one Monsieur Frecoult, of
Cayeux. However, you must use oars
until well away from the coast, else the
Germans may hear the motor.

“Put on your clothing now, my

English friend; I will await you out-
side.”

.WHEN the old man had left, Pen-
^ dran quickly slipped into his uni-
form. He was suddenly conscious of
being very hungry, but, realizing he had
no time to search about for food, con-
tented himself by slipping several of the
large, neatly sealed cans of fish into the
voluminous pockets of his flying jacket.
Then he left the building.

Half an hour later, under coyer of
a moonless night, Arthur Pendran bade
goodby to his elderly friend, stepped
into a small boat and took up the oars.
Under the powerful swing of his shoul-
ders, the light craft slipped noiselessly
across the bay and into the choppy
waters of the English Channel.

The first rays of dawn found him
alone on a vast plain of water. France
lay below the horizon’s edge behind
him; ahead, still invisible, was Britain’s
coast. Satisfied that there was no other
boat in the vicinity, Pendran started
the motor and sank back to let it do
the work.

He found a waterproof bag of food
under the seat; also a jug of luke-warm
water. There were even half a dozen
vile-tasting French cigarettes in a bit
of paper packed in with the food, which
gave the final, perfect touch to his meal.

The day passed without incident.
During the passing hours the sun shone
brilliantly, a faint cool breeze blew
softly out of the east, and the water
remained almost perfectly calm.

With less than an hour remaining be-
fore sunset, Pendran caught sight of
a grayish, cloud-like formation spread-
ing across the western horizon — a shape
that grew steadily higher against the
sky.

“just my lousy luck,” he muttered,
“to run into a storm. And after every-
thing’s been going so smooth. I sup-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

pose I’d better ”

Abruptly he broke off in mid-sen-
tence, stared hard at the horizon, then
suddenly bounded to his feet with a
wild scream of delirious exultation.

“It's England!” he yelled to the heav-
ens. “Old Fish-and-chips herself! Roll
out the plush carpet, you limeys; li’l
Arthur’s coming home!”

Only silence answered him; and he
sank back, a trifle ashamed of his out-
burst. And at that moment, the motor
coughed twice — and diedl

A hasty examination told him the
gasoline tank was empty. With a song
on his lips, he picked up the oars and
set resolutely to work.

Two hours later the prow of the tiny
boat grated 'against a low, tree-clothed
shore. It was quite dark by now and
nowhere could he catch the slightest
glimmer of artificial light.

“So this is how England guards her
shores!” he murmured, as he hopped
from the boat and. drew it up on the
narrow expanse of beach. “I could be
the whole German army and no one
would know I was around!”

He took several steps toward the line
of trees beyond the beach. And then
there was a swift rush of feet behind
him ; he whirled — and went down under
the combined impact of a dozen mus-
cular bodies.

“Hey! Take it easy, for the love — ”
was all he had time to cry out;
then something dealt him a terrific blow
aside the head, stars exploded before
his eyes — and he lost consciousness.

■ T HE bloke’s cornin’ ’round, ’e is,”
a nasal voice said.

Pendran opened his eyes, wincing as
a sharp twinge shot through his skull,
and looked up ht the circle of weather-
beaten, masculine faces about him,
shadowy in the faint light of a lantern
hanging on the plank wall next to him.

He said, “You guys sure don’t be^
lieve in asking questions first, do you?”

There were five of them. One, a
round-faced, ruddy-cheeked man in his
sixties, said, “We was a mite hasty, sir.
But it was that dark we couldn’t see
yer un-e-form. ,An’ fer all we cud be
aknowin’, you cud abin a blarsted sob-e-
tyoor. What with a special boat, an’
all.”

From behind the circle of faces, an
authoritative voice said crisply, “All
right, you men; I’d like to speak to
our guest alone, if you don’t mind.”

The five faces reluctantly disap-
peared, and Pendran could hear their
owners leaving the room. A new face
took shape above Pendran’s cot — a
handsome British face, with a slight
blond moustache and a pair of very
blue eyes above a natty uniform of an
R.A.F. colonel.

“I’m Colonel Manwaring,” said the
face in the clipped, precise speech of an
upper-class Englishman. “We’ve a base
near here, and the men who snaffed
you sent for me when they identified
your uniform. You’ve been unconscious
for nearly three hours, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” Pendran admitted
ruefully. He touched the back of his
head gingerly, then added, “But I can
sure believe it.”

Colonel Manwaring pulled a three-
legged stool close to the cot, sat down
and drew pencil and small notebook
from an inner pocket. “First,” he said,
“I should like your name, rank and out-
fit. Then I’d like you to tell me your
story. You see, we found a small silk
wrapper in one of your pockets; and
I should like very much to know how
you came by it.”

Pendran gave the requested informa-
tion about himself, then added, “If you
don’t mind, sir, could you tell me what
was in that bit of silk? There were
several times I came darned near tak-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

ing a look, but I figured it might be
better' to turn it over to Military Intel-
ligence unopened.”

“There’s no reason why I shouldn't
ease your curiosity, I suppose,” the
colonel said. He lowered his voice. “It
mustn’t be repeated, of course, but the
packet contained, on microfilm, com-
plete details of an attempted invasion
of Britain the Jerries expect to launch
in less than a fortnight.* There is
absolutely no doubt of its authenticity.”

^^FTER Pendran had recounted his
adventures of the preceding three
weeks, Colonel Manwaring tucked the
pencil and notebook into his pocket
and got to his feet.

“Your story matches some of the
things we already know,” he observed.
“One of our agents on the Continent
got word to us a week ago that Fred-
rich von Lemske and two of his aides
had met their deaths under mysterious
circumstances. ‘ Certainly he deserved
it, from what I hear.

“Well, I must be buzzing off, Pen-
dran. There’ll be a car around in the
morning to take you back to your base.
Meanwhile, Hawkins, who owns this
shack, will dig up a spot of food for
you and make you comfortable for the
night. Not quite Buckingham Palace,
I’ll admit, but better than the Channel.”
“It’s downright luxury after what
I’ve been through!” Pendran said, grin-
ning. “Goodnight, Colonel Manwaring
— and many thanks.”

Shortly after the R.A.F. officer had
gone, the door opened again and a
stocky-bodied little man with white,
thinning hair and a wrinkled, good-

* In August, 1941, Germany attempted to gather
an armada of small craft off the French coast,
preparatory to launching an invasion of the British
Isles. This effort was checkmated by Great Britain
with the use of burning oil, which was sprayed
over the water. Thousands of German soldiers
perished and the maneuver was abandoned. — E d.

humored face came in. He said, “I’m
’Awkjns, sir. The colonel said as ’ow
you might be wantin’ to eat somethin’.”

“Thanks, Hawkins; I could use it.”
Pendran sat up carefully and put his
feet on the floor. Beyond a dull ache
above his right temple and a feeling
of dizziness that passed quickly, he felt
pretty much himself. While Hawkins
tossed hunks of wood into a small, rusty
cooking range, the red-haired flier went
over to the chair where his coat lay,
and dug from the pockets the four cans
he had taken from Frangois Ambert’s
shelves at the fish cannery. These he
stacked neatly on a shelf near the stove,
saying:

“Here’s something to add to your
larder, Hawkins. Fish, I think. Picked
them up in France.”

The Englishman put the lid back on
the stove, wiped his hands, and reached
for a can-opener. “H’anything extra
these d’ys sure’s welcome,” he observed.
“We’ll try some of the Frenchy’s fish,
that we will.”

Pendran retreated to a chair and a
cigarette while Hawkins put a pot on
the blazing stove and started the opener
in one of the cans the American had
brought. A moment later there was a
startled grunt.

“Something wrong, Hawkins?” Pen-
dran asked idly, glancing up.

The white-haired man turned, grin-
ning, the open can in his hand. “I’m
afraid, sir,” he said, “that someun’s bin
pullin’ yer leg a bit! Look at this.”

The lid of the tin container was re-
moved. The can was filled with bits
of broken glass!

“Hell’s bells!” Pendran gasped in-
credulously. “Now, why in the world
would the Frenchman do a thing like
that?”

Two French boys, Raoul Frecoult
and Henri Bernay, could have told him
of the bent-backed madman who hid

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

away, in some unknown place, the odds
arid ends of worthless junk he accumu-
lated. Hawkins echoed young Fre-
coult’s question by saying, in response
to Pendran’s question, “Must be a bit
on the balmy side, hi’d say. Lots of
them Frenchies is. Well, never
fear, sir; there’s plenty to eat that’s
our own.”

j ATER, over a side of mutton and a
a few boiled potatoes, Hawkins
gave his guest a coftiplete and highly
colorful picture of world events dur-
ing Pendran’s weeks on the Continent.
And it was near to morning’s light when
Hawkins finished clearing away the
dishes and went off to another room
of the shack to sleep, leaving Pendran
a few hours in which to rest before
the car would come to take, the young
American back to his base.

For a little while he sat on the edge
of his cot, his thoughts jumbled from
weariness and the end of the awful
strain of the past few weeks. He won-
dered if old Merlin would call him back
through Time to explain his failure to
gairi possession of the Holy Grail., And
the fair Guinevere — what would her re-
action be when she learned that the
Cup was forever lost, swept .to oblivion
by swift-flowing waters?

He sighed deeply, there in the dark-
ness. Would Merlin’s prophecy be ful-
filled: “For this I tell you — naught will
prevail against the forces of Evil else
ye . act!”

It was completely unfair to place
the fate of all fretdom-loving mankind
on so fragile a support as the possession
,of a bit' of metal called the Holy Grail 1
Yet, even as he rebelled against the
idea, he knew that Merlin’s prophecy
would come true.

At last he could think no longer.
And so he stretched himself wearily
upon the cot and closed his eyes. And

in that instant he fell fast asleep
and dreamed. '

It seemed to Arthur Pendran that
the rough wooden walls of the room
were suddenly transparent, and that
beyond those walls was the great hall
wherein stood the throne-like chair of
fabled Queen Guinevere. Clearly he
could see unimportant details: the or-
nately carved chairs grouped about a
mammoth fireplace; the crude, unfin-
ished stone of walls and' floor; the
burly men-at-arms in their coats of
mail.

And as he watched, Guinevere, as
blonde and as lovely as he last remem-
bered her, appeared in a doorway of
that huge hall at the head of a retinue
of attendants. Regally she came .for-
ward to mount the low dais and seat
herself in the throne-chair.

Now came Merlin, his long black
gown brushing the floor, his beard
gleaming like freshly fallen snow in
the strange radiance of the dream.
Through the transparent wooden walls
he came, to stand, briefly, beside - the
pallet of the sleeping American. The
expression on his calm, ageless face
was one of mingled benediction and
happiness, of utter and serene satisfac-
tion.

Finally. Merlin turned away from the
bed and went slowly to the wooden wall
across from where Arthur Pendran lay
dreaming. And when he turned back
again, to face the cot, the young man
saw that he held some brightly gleam-
ing object in his hand — an object that
Pendran could not identify. And as
Merlin held it in his ancient hand, great
tears of molten metal seemed to fall in
shining drops to the bare wooden floor.

Gradually a shimmering radiance
came alive within the circle of Mer-
lin’s fingers, until there was revealed
a stemmed, goblet-like cup of silver.
Larger, ever larger, swelled the periph-

THE STRANGE MISSION OF ARTHUR PENDRAN

ery of that pulsating radiance until all
else was blotted out.

Then, from the heart of that glowing
world of light, came solemn words:

“Well done, Sir Arthur; take pridr.
in thy success!"

^RTHUR PENDRAN awoke with a
violent start to find his body bathed
in perspiration, his legs and arms trem-
bling as though he had run a great dis-
tance. Quickly he rose from the cot
and with trembling fingers lighted the
lantern that hung from a nail in the
wall.

“What a dream 1” he muttered in a
shaking voice. “Or — was it a dream?”

His eyes swung to where, in the
dream, Merlin had stood_. There onjhe
floor, glistening in the yellow lamp-
light, lay tiny pools of melted tin!

Even as he raised his eyes to the shelf
against the wall, he knew what they
would behold. Three tin containers,
taken from a run-down French cannery,
had stood side by side on that shelf
when he had gone to sleep. Two were
still in place, but between them, where
the third had been, was nothing.

Slowly he sank ■ down on the cot’s
edge and bowed his head in his hands.
And gradually there stole over him a
warm and abiding peace;

The End.

'k flATOEKIB FRIAKS ★

W HEN Spanish explorers first set foot on
the Western Hemisphere they landed on
the shores of Central and South America.
In the dark mysterious jungles of what we now
know as Venezuela and British Guiana they en-
countered strange four-footed birds, remnants of
the earliest ages of the Earth. What thoughts
raced through the minds of these daring Spaniards
we will never know, but the creatures they saw
still inhabit the warm tropical dampness of the
lowlands and have been viewed by scientists of
our own day.

The four-footed Hoatzin is perhaps the most
unusual of all the birds that men. of science have
studied. All our feathered friends, as you may
know, are descended from reptiles. Bone forma-
tions which have been preserved for millions of
years in solid rock show every stage of the bird's
development from his reptile ancestors. All living
birds have lost the teeth of the reptile, and all lost
the long fleshy tail ages ago; but the Hoatzin,
alone of all birds, still retains the front legs with
their fingers and claws, although they change to
true wings as the "birds grow up. For this reason
these strange birds are of great interest to scien-
tists. ,

Aside from the fact that they have four feet
when young, the Hoatzin reminds all who view
its habits of the characteristic habits of the lizard.
When a Hoatzin is in danger, he doesn’t try to
escape by flying away, but drops to the water and
vanishes, exactly as a lizard would do. Like tree

lizards, these birds will sidle along the branches or
hop from one tree to another when alarmed, and
if they finally take flight they will fly only a short
distance, using their wings with a great effort.
Even the voice of the Hoatzin is more of what one
might expect from a reptile than from a bird, for
their notes are odd grunts, croaks and squeaks.

On their tramp through the mud and brush en-
tanglements, the Spaniards were the first men from
the European Continent to be astounded by the
color and number of handsome red-headed black-
birds, golden starlings, sky-blue, crimson, green
and yellow tanagers. They must have stared in
amazement when they saw the Jacanas run swiftly
about on the surface of the water. If they had
watched the bird's movements closely they would
have found that their eyes had not told the true
story. Instead of walking on the water itself, the
Jacana uses the leaves of water plants in the same
manner that a man uses snowshoes. The bird is
built with long slender toes which he is able to
spread across several leaves at a time.

The Spaniards endured many hardships on their
trek through the jungles of this new strange land.
Their armor was heavy and uncomfortable; the
mosquito , was an annoying as well as dangerous
pest. Those that survived the strenuous journey
had amazing tales to tell their countrymen after
they returned to their homeland, tales of' a rich
land filled with weird, almost unbelievable crea-
tures.

"Those vapors," Hector explained, "put me in the proper mood for reading!' 1

ILLUSTRATED BY JULIAN KRUPA

f | SHEY say there are no signposts
I on the street that leads to the end
of the world. There was one
sign for Laury Grenfall, but he didn’t
recognize its meaning.

One moment Laury was walking
casually along staring at his feet; the
dying sun cast a long, ungainly shadow

ahead of him. The next moment his
feet were frozen tightly, heel to heel,
for his shadow had suddently boiled
down to a black pool.

Miraculously, the round black blotch
detached itself and darted, spider-like,
through the hedge and across the near-
est lawn to climb swiftly up a wall of

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

brown vines. There was an instant that
the thing perched on an upper window-
sill, for all the world like a little black
gnome rocking on its heels.

Laury rubbed his eyes., “Twilight
playing tricks, 5 ' he muttered uneasily.
“Serves me right for staring too long at
shadows!”

He swung around with a hollow
laugh. Colfax Campus was no longer a
reassuring sight. Solemn oaks stood
shabby guard before angular, vine-
shrouded buildings. A few windows
gleamed like aged, watery eyes socketed
: deeply in unhealthy, mouldering flesh.
Five minutes ago it had looked beauti-
ful.

Laury was ashamed of the cold shud-
der that swept through his body. He
straightened his spine, jacking-up the
narrow shoulders, and faced about
again. He had to force his eyes to read
-the street-number; somehow he didn’t
want this to be the house.

113. There was no denying the
gleaming silver numbers. This gaunt
two-story frame, towering monstrously
over its neighbors, hedged tightly with
brooding' evergreens, was Mrs. Wolfe’s
boarding house!

gLOWLY Laury turned in at the wide
walk; tufts of brown grass spilled
through crooked seams, forming silent
pads to his feet. A smile twitched across
the tight line of his lips. “Grow up, son!
It isn't the nicest, but you’ll have to like
it!”

He crossed the porch. His long,
slender fingers touched the rusty
knocker, hesitated, and then coiled into
a ball which tapped meekly at the
heavy, iron-studded door. No answer.
He pounded harder and a window some-
where rattled like dry bones.

The door finally drifted open. The
white feminine face that peered out was
neither old nor ominous. Laury grinned

sheepishly and removed his hat.

The door creaked wide. “You must
be Hector’s new roommate,” the girl
said.

“That’s right,” Laury replied. “Hec-
tor Baum is the name, I believe? It was
all arranged at the Dean’s office.”

“I'm Nina Wolfe. This is my moth-
er’s house.”

Loose brown hair fell down across
both cheeks to form a kind of hood over
the girl’s face. Little humorous wrinkles
flared like sparks around her gray eyes.

“I’m Laurens Grenfall.”

“Please come in.”

Inside, the beams sagged with age
and a faint musty odor clung to the
walls. The doorways were hung with
grotesque webs of burnished wood.
Laury followed the girl up squeaking
stairs padded with worn red carpet.

“It’s like a home all in one room, Mr.
Grenfall,” Nina Wolfe promised.

TP AURY liked the room at first. He
liked the thickly-padded twin beds,
the neat mahogany bureaus, the deep
closets, the old mahogany roll desk, and
the long shelves of ragged books.

He was not so sure about the fellow
who stood there scowling over one of
the books. Again, oddly, Laury felt
that unpleasant twinge in the region of
his breast trembling along the ribs to
the spine, as though a voice of disaster
cried out from his own bones. Bah!
What could possibly be alarming about
a man reading a book?

Hector Baum was tall and raw-boned,
and almost handsome, except that the
brows were too heavy and the eyes too
sharp. “Laurens Grenfall?” he said,
working the name with long lips which
curled down at the edges. He tossed
Laury’s bags into a closet. “You’ll do,
Grenfall. Not too big. Easy for me to
shove around.”

Laury shifted his small feet uneasily.

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW 87

“I’m post-graduate in education,” he of-
fered: “What’re you in for?” -
Hector Baum grinned. “Criminology.
Good old criminology! I want to learn
why people stab each other in the back.”
“Don’t believe him, Mr: Grenfall,”
Nina Wolfe inserted. “Hector’s really
interested in how people kill each other,
not why!”

“Oh sure, I play around with the me-
chanics of murder, but that’s just a
means to an end.”

“Yes?” Laury said politely.

Hector Baum shrugged. “The motive-
force is the element I seek. If murder
could be tapped at its roots in the rotten
substance of the human mind, if we
could follow the killer’s progress,
thought by thought, step by step — ”
“He goes on like that for hours!”
Nina Wolfe said.

.“Excuse my chatter,” Hector
grunted. “That’s my thumbnail biog-
raphy. What’s yours, Grenfall?”

“I’m an orphan — ”

“Oh I Too bad.”

“No. Not really. I was quite young
— brought up in an orphanage, and I in-
tend to carry on in that work.”

“Well, well. The humanitarian type,
eh?”

“If you boys will excuse me — ”

Laury bowed at Nina Wolfe’s figure
prancing out the door — a trim body,
supple at the hips.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Hector Baum
suggested. “Nina just works here. Her
mother has puritanic theories about
mixing sexes in a boarding house; so
daughter lives at a sorority.” He drew
in his breath through sharp white teeth.
“Anyway, I think Nina is the girl I’m
going to marry.”

CHAPTER II

T AURY learned soon enough about
his roommate’s habits, particularly

his interest in crime, which was some-
-thing more than, acadonic. Hector
seemed to have an uncanny taste for
mystery stories; the bookshelves were
lined with gruesome titles.

The original neatness of the room had
only been a sham, Laury discovered.
Ordinarily the roll desk was a litter of
bottles, crucibles, fingerprint ink — any-
thing remotely connected with the sci-
ence of crime. More than once the
brown blotting pads were stained with
something which clotted too thickly to
be red ink. If Laury so much as re-
moved a loose hair or a shred of cloth
from that desk he was all but booted
down the stairs.

The desk was Hector’s “laboratory.”
Laury’s work must be done on any other
clear space — usually one of the beds.
“You’ll get used to it,” Hector sug-
gested.

Hector’s favorite practice was to take
a scientific crime story and work out the
detective’s experiments in his own lab-
oratory. “Believe it or not, some of the
greatest detective work in the world is
in novels,” Hector explained one eve-
ning. “Some of the greatest crimes,
too.”

“How could a crime be ‘great’?”
Laury inquired.

Hector grinned. “ ‘Beautiful’ is the
word,” he said. “I could tell you about
some beautiful crimes!”

Hector jerked a book from the desk-
top, and thrust it into Laury’s hands.
It was thin but ponderously bound in
thick black leather. “I collect rare books
of crime detection and mystery. This
set of six is a prize. Priceless!”

Laury noticed the title, The Dripping
Heart. The author’s name was surpris-
ing, a single name : Kancir.

Laury handed back the book distaste-
fully. “That’s a queer name — Kancir,”
he said. “Sounds like a disease.”

“Maybe it is!” Hector laughed, paw-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ing at the gold-edged pages. “Haven't
had time to read any of this set, yet.
Very* rare stuff. I picked these up at an
auction from some dead millionaire's
library. Nobody guessed how valuable
they were. This fellow Kancir was an
English-educated Gypsy, a mystic.
Wrote only a few books, as far as I can
learn. In fact, there’s practically noth-
ing about him in literary histories, no
reference at all to his dates. What a
scoop if I found out that his work pre-
ceded Edgar Allan Poe!”

Hector fanned the pages before
Laury’s eyes. “Note the type: Gothic
style. Devilish stuff to read. ‘The Black
Letter,’ they call it. Sounds ominous,
doesn’t it?”

“Say, that’s interesting!” Laury ad-
mitted.

“Like to read one, Laury?” For the
first time Laury felt friendliness in the
gleam of his roommate’s eyes.

“I — I guess not,” Laury fumbled. His
eyes fell before Hector’s intense gaze.
“I'm-r— I'm allergic to horror. Yes, real-
ly! When I was a boy — so my parents
used to say — the goblin stories would
give me terrible nightmares.

“I’ve never outgrown the distaste for
death; sometimes it amounts almost to
sickness. You know — like some people
can’t, stand the sight of blood.”

“That’s the queerest thing I ever
heard!” Hector exploded. He had a
way of studying the person as though it
were a specimen on an operating table.

Hector began to pace the room. “You
should read them!” he muttered.
“Broaden your outlook. Damn it,
Laury, you don’t really understand man
until you’ve seen his finest criminal in-
stincts at workl”

“I can’t say I like the way you put
that.”

“I do like it!” Hector snapped, pin-
ning the shorter youth against the wall.
“Would you face crime like a man or a

mouse, Laury? How about it?”

Right then Laury felt like a mouse,
shuddering as he pushed his roommate
back. “I don’t like the stuff,” he mum-
bled.

CHAPTER 111

|~^URING the first month of lectures,
seminars, and thesis consultations
there was not much time for a postgrad
in education to think about his room-
mate’s ideas on crime. Occasionally
there was time to think about the house-
keeper’s daughter, who flitted in and
out of the room as briefly as the flicker
of a candle.

Laury tried to hide his interest in
Nina, even from himself. It irked him
to come suddenly upon the girl in the
shadows of the dark hallway, always
with Hector hovering over her, pawing
at her slight shoulders.

After two months Laury screwed up
courage to ask for a date. He waited
one day to meet her on the library steps.
The knit dress was brown and red like
the October leaves. “Hello Nina,” he
said breathlessly. “Tonight is Hallo-
ween. Doing anything?”

“Tonight!” she gasped. “Oh, I’m
sorry. I — I’m busy tonight.”

She rewarded Laury with one of her
rare, fleeting smiles and he walked home
in a trance. In the gloomy boarding
house, climbing the creaky stairway, he
muttered, “You fool! Why did you
give her such short notice?”

Usually there was a musty odor in the
old house; Laury noticed the difference
as soon as he stepped into his room — a
nauseating, unnatural sweetness.

Of ECTOR BAUM was curled in an
overstuffed chair, his pipe dangling
from stiff lips, thumbing eagerly at the
crisp pages of a book. On the desk be-
side him smoke was rising lazily from

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

a crucible, hovering a miasma of evil.

Hector tapped the book, one of the
Kancir set. “Decided to indulge,” he
explained. “This sort of reading gets
under your skin like a drug, you know.”
“Does it?” Laury almost laughed at
the idea. “What’s that lousy smell?”
Hector chuckled and pointed at the
smoking crucible. “Look at this,” he
said, holding up the book. “This will
give you an idea how the boys wrote
stories in the old days. It’s from the
foreword.”

His pipe stem traced the words in
heavy Gothic print:

“O, weak of heart, Beware!

Strong, poisonous words are these .
Lest mind be faint and overcome,
And human unctions cease,

Beware !

This incense, sweet and rare,

Stir well and deep inspire,

Lest strange and hideous impetus
Befoul thy mind's desire.

Beware!”

Printed below the odd verse was a
row of Latin symbols.

“Believe it or not,” Hector said,
“that’s a formula for incense. I had a
hard time scraping the elements to-
gether, but I finally squeezed them out
of old Haycroft over at the ch'em lab.”
Laury sniffed distastefully. “Do you
have to mix up every formula you come
across?” he snapped.

Hector slapped Laury’s back. “Good
boy! You’re improving. That’s the
first time I’ve ever heard a contrary
opinion out of you. Speak for yourself,
m’boy.”

Laury grunted at the compliment but
he noticed that Hector made no offer to
extinguish the incense.

The odor was sickening. Laury drew
on a topcoat and stamped angrily out
of the room. Hector didn’t even glance

up from the pages of his book.

Laury passed.the dining room on his
way out. The long table was immacu-
late with lace cloth and gleaming silver.
A long silver carving knife lay in its
felt cradle. The handle was studded
with gargoyle-like figures; the blade
was keen. Laury shivered. .Sharp sur-
faces always made his flesh crawl.

“I won’t be in to dinner, Mrs. Wolfe,”
he called in the direction of the kitchen
door.

JT WAS a dreary evening. Laury had
never noticed before how lonesome
a crowded, silent library could be. What
a pity that Nina Wolfe should be wasted
on fellow like Hector !

The campus was even more of a
black, unpopulated void. Laury wan-
dered home aimlessly. Wind whined
and leaves scuttled around his feet like
a pack of mongrel dogs.

Mrs. Wolfe’s boarding house formed
a witch’s shadow, the roof a peaked hat,
two blinking eyes of light in the attic.
That would be Otis Peebles’ room. Otis
was Hector’s old fraternity chum from
undergraduate days. Funny that Otis,
knowing Hector so well, didn’t room
with him! Or was it?

Laury fumbled at the latch and
groped awkwardly through the dark-
ened house. On the stairway he thought
of the clean-laid dining table and the
sharp carving knife. Was that the sur-
face of it shining there, gem-like,
against the blackness?

He hurried up the stairway, thinking
idly of the knife floating out of its
sheath and gliding on some deadly mis-
sion into the night.

The bright light of his room was a
relief to dark thoughts, but the air still
reeked of incense. Strange that he
should mind the smell so much; most in-
censes w'ere pleasant.

Hector would be out on that Hallo-

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ween date with Nina, no doubt. Laury
undressed miserably and was sliding
into bed when he saw the open book on
the desk. Gingerly he picked it up. The
title was Ecstasy and Terror. The aur
thor was Kancir.

Laury lay in bed, toying idly at the
pages. “Wonder what it is about crime
and blood and sudden death that amuses
people?” he thought.

He began to read, stumbling at first
over the awkward style of the language
and the unusual print. Feet sounded on
the attic stairway, going down, but he
scarcely heard. Hours slipped past. He
read as far as the page in which Hector
had inserted a bookmark. That page
was the climax of mounting, horrific sus-
pense:

Lorenzo was happy. The act was
about to be performed.

He approached his victim , a ma-
gistrate, simulating a pistol. He
disarmed suspicion by saying, “Sir,
raise no outcry. Have no fear.
These are the solemn rites of the
Supreme Ecstasy!’ He tied the
gentleman’s hands. He blindfolded
him and led him on a long and
solemn walk . At the end he com-
manded him, in awesome voice, to
kneel down, as it were a' sacred
temple.

It was not a temple. It was the
portico of a public house. Imbed-
ded in the cobble-stones of the pub-
lic-way was a sharp iron blade upon
which in-comers might scrape mud
and refuse from their shoes.

Kneeling, the victim’s head was
directly above the blade.

Lorenzo proceeded expertly to
slit the throat of his victim with a
short dagger and then to force the
open wound down upon the scraper
as though the magistate had
tripped, by chance, over a jutting

stone, and had fallen violently on
the blade.

Quickly then the bandages were
removed from hands and, eyes.
With the bloody knife and gloves,
they were hidden in a nearby pond.

Lorenzo was satiate. The act
was complete.

Laury suddenly dropped the book in
disgust. The picture was terribly vivid.
There was a mud-scraper on the library
steps just like the one described. An-
grily, he switched out the light over the
bed and darkness lay on his eyes like a
thick blindfold.

“What sort of person could conceive
such stuff?” he muttered.

CHAPTER 111

TT AURY stretched until his toes were
thrust out of the blankets, between
the spindles of the bedstead, into the
chill November air. Sunlight painted
dazzling patterns on the frosty window.

“Wonderful 1” he breathed. “I have
never felt so wonder-full”

He rolled lightly out of the bed, one
foot stubbing on the book that lay open
on the floor. Laury rubbed his toe and
grinned.

A glance at his roommate’s bed re-
vealed long hairs sprouting weirdly
from the top of the sheet.

Laury danced on bare feet into the
bathroom, shaved briskly with cold
water, dressed swiftly in a blue suit, and
trotted down the stairway with his
strange morning elation.

The table in the dining room was
freshly set, as ever, gleaming with pol-
ished silver. He felt vaguely that there
was a subtle difference, something lack-
ing in the picture but the feeling quickly
passed.

He rubbed his palms. “First man
down, Mrs. Wolfe,” he bawled toward

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

the closed entrance to the kitchen.

A little beak-faced woman burst
through the swinging door, sombre in
black linen, arms fluttering.like a raven
surprised into flight. She sank into a
chair, red tongue darting nervously in
and out of her thin white lips.

“Oh Mr. Grenfall, the most awful
thing I It’s enough to make a body
sick I”

Laury scowled. It was such a nice
morning.

“That dear Professor Haycroft who
lives up the street- — you know him, Mr.
Grenfall ; he had a terrible accident last
night. He’s dead!”

“Haycroft?” Laury repeated dully.
“Dead?”

“There’s been noise and police going
up and down this street for hours. A
neighbor man told me. He said Pro-
fessor Haycroft seemed to have tripped
and fell and cut his throat on one of
those blade-things they have in front of
the library to scrape mud off your
shoes!”

'"jpHERE was only blankness on
Laury’s face, but the white skin of
his throat slowly turned a yellow-green.

“Did you say — ' throat cut’?” Laury
murmured. “On a mud-scraper?”

“Oh yes! Isn’t it ghastly, Mr. Gren-
fall?” '

Laury tried to pull himself out of the
chair, away from those piercing, bird-
like eyes, but there was a strange, help-
less chill in his limbs. A slow nausea
crept up his throat, glazing the eyes,
dulling the brain. Mental shock, sud-
den horror, always affected him like an
anesthetic.

Mrs. Wolfe moved vaguely in and out
of Laury’s stupor. His lips seemed to
speak empty, pointless words.

Other boarders drifted into the scene,
tramping heavily in the outer hallway.
Steps pounded loudly down the upper

stairway and a hand jarred Laury’s
shoulder. “Hello, Mr. Chips I ” shrilled
a high male voice.

Otis Peebles sat down beside Laury,
his fat, tallowy cheeks jiggling with
good humor, round eyes dancing in their
meaty sockets. “Something you et,
Chips old boy?” he inquired.

Laury made an effort to speak and
then another figure, a tall one, material-
ized at his other shoulder.

“Hector, your roommate seems out of
sorts this morning,” Peebles announced
loudly to the newcomer.

“He should be, poor boy,” said Mrs.
Wolfe. She planted a steaming tray of
omelets and bacon in the middle of the
table. “That terrible accident to dear
old Mr. Haycroft is enough to upset
anybody.”

Hector Baum slid into his chair and
his shaggy eyebrows lifted, but the
twisted line of his lips did not change,
even when Mrs. Wolfe carefully and
gruesomely described the accident.

A grim, unchallenged silence settled
on the room. Laury mumbled some ex-
cuse to leave the table and glided as
furtively as a thief up the creaking stair-
way.

A facial massage was soothing. When
Laury quietly returned to the bedroom,
he surprised Hector Baum poring over
a book. Hector snapped it shut, his
narrow shoulders twitching.

Laury snatched at something ordi-
nary to say: “How was your Hallow-
een?”

“Halloween?” Hector said, as though
he didn’t understand, and then: “Oh yes
— last night. Just some of the boys
playing poker at Deke house.”

Hector casually lighted a cigarette.
“Have you read this?” he asked, hand-
ing over the book.

Laury turned Ecstasy and Terror in
his hands. “A — a part of it,” he said.
“I — uh — I didn’t like it!”

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Hector Baum’s black eyes ran over
his roomate from head to foot, and they
were like spiders running across the
flesh.

}

T AURY got away from the house.

He didn’t want to talk to Hector.

Without any prompting from his puz-
zled mind, Laury’s feet turned auto-
matically toward the campus.

The grey stone facade of the library
was veiled with thick ivy. Broad com
crete steps led up to granite ' pillars,
whose stately lines seemed suddenly to
have changed to ugliness.

Two’ policemen had roped off a sec-
tion of the walk in front of the library.
Sightseers pressed greedily against the
ropes.

“Vampires 1 ” Laury sneered under his
breath, but he couldn’t resist elbowing
through the crowd.

The mud-cutter was a long, thin strip
of steel socketed at. each end in decora-
tive, looping iron uprights. The blade,
rusted and blunted as it was, still main-
tained a certain sharpness.

Laury saw the red stain that was
brighter than rust. Faintness tugged at
his knees. He swayed on the rope,, sick
with a mental picture of that blade per-
forming its bloody task.

A uniformed detective was measuring
with a tape the distance from the cut-
ter to the rough, chipped edge of the
curb. “Four and a half,” the officer
pronounced, and another lieutenant jot-
ted figures in a notebook.

Drunkenly, Laury dragged himself
away from the rope, numbers drumming
in his brain :

Professor Haycroft must have been
nearly six jeet tall. The blade was only
jour and a half jeet from the curb. A
man would have to be walking swiftly,
almost running, to fall with sufficient
force to jugulate himself; but a swift-
moving man, six feet tall, tripping on

that curb, would have hit the blade with
his chest , no t with his throat!

Hounded with a dreadful, unshake-
able idea, Laury desperately elbowed
through knots of jabbering students.
Halfway across the campus he felt a
familiar slap on the back. “Don’t take
it so hard, Chips old boy,” Otis Pee-
bles said, spreading his bulk across the
path. “What would old Haycroft say
to that sour puss of yours? ‘Chins up!
Carry on I ’ he’d say. That was old Hay-
croft for you. Just ask Hector — ”

Hector! Yes, what did Hector know
about Haycroft’s death? Where was
Hector last night?

Laury found his hands on Peebles’
shoulders, tugging at the flabby wads of
muscle. “Otis, listen! Tell me some-
thing. Did you go to the poker party
at the Deke house last night?”

Peebles’ fat cheeks wrinkled up like
biscuit dough. “The Deke house?” he
snorted, quizzically. “Hell! Nobody
played poker over there last night. I
dropped in around midnight and the
house was dead as a mausoleum!
Why?”

“Nothing. I — I guess I’m just mixed
up,” Laury muttered, moving rapidly
away.

“Chins up!” Peebles called gayly.

Hector lied about last night. Hector
lied to me! Laury stopped short, and
held up his hands before his face and
they were trembling the way the last
dead leaves tremble on the vine.

r J"'HE hand was Still trembling when
he laid it on Mrs. Wolfe’s bannister.
The steep, narrow stairway faded at the
top into dark emptiness. Hector would
be up there, reading a book probably —

Laury turned back. He sank down
oh a little bench in the dark alcove be-
hind the stairs and pressed his face
against. his palms. “Don’t be a damned
fool!” he muttered. “It’s just a coin-

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

cidence — a fantastic, unbelievable co-
incidence ! ”

A hand touched his shoulder and he
started violently. Nina Wolfe was sit-
ting on the bench beside him.

“I didn’t hear you at all,” Laury said
ruefully.

“Are you sick, Laury?”

Was the girl really concerned, or was
she just being friendly? It was quite
dark in the alcove. Laury leaned his
face closer to see her eyes. She didn’t
draw away.

He had never been so close to Nina
before. A new, emotion slowly chased
the dread out of his thoughts. The
house, and the stairway, and the room
upstairs drifted slowly away from him.
His chest tightened; he had to stand up
to breathe evenly.

His hands came up from his sides
lifting Nina gently by the arms. He
tugged slightly at her shoulders and she
moved closer, looking full in his face.
Her head was thrown back so that the
long brown hair fell away from her chin
exposing the white throat.-

“Sometimes you’re beautiful!” he
whispered.

“Sometimes?” she repeated, mock-
ingly.

“I mean — I mean the sometimes that
I get to see you. I was terribly lone-
some last night, Nina.”

“Poor boy!”

Laury stiffened. Was she laughing
at him?

“Where were you? Last night, I
mean,” he asked lamely.

“Look who’s asking questions?” the
girl jeered.

Laury’s tone hardened. “Were you
out with Hector last night?” he de-
manded.

Nina tossed her head. “And what if I
was?”

“How late were you with him?”

She gasped and pushed at his shoul-

ders. “I suppose next you’ll ask what
we were doing!”

“I can imagine!” Laury said hoarse-
ly. His grip tightened and he planted
his lips firmly on hers.

Her quick struggling motion threw
Laury off balance. He released the girl,
spinning on his heel, and grabbing for
the wall. His eyes swung up and back,
photographing a furious, scowling face
at the top of the stair-well and long,
strong fingers sliding down the bannis-
ter. For a moment all three persons —
Laury, Nina, and above them, Hector
Baum — seemed posed in dramatic tab-
leau, and then Hector stumped loudly
down the stairs.

“Nina!” The shrill, startling voice
came not from overhead but from the
dining room. Mrs. Wolfe bustled into
the scene. “Nina, I don’t know what
to do ! My silver carving knife is gone ;
I can’t find it anywhere!”

CHAPTER IV

|LjT ECTOR BAUM never spent an
evening at home. His regular
habit was to come in long after mid-
night, to undress in darkness, and slip
silently into his bed opposite Laury’s.

Lying awake night after night in the
darkened room, waiting for his room-
mate’s steps, Laury Grenfall grew fa-
miliar with the darkness. Every sound
in the cold, dark house came to have
its certain meaning. First, Mrs. Wolfe
would move about testing window bolts
and door locks. She slept downstairs
off the parlor. Next, there would be the
thump, thump of Otis Peebles’ heavy
shoes overhead, the groaning of bed
springs under his weight. And then
long hours afterward the stairs would
begin a symphony of creaks announc-
ing that Hector Baum was home. When
the agony of creaking sounds ended in
a rusty sigh from the bedroom door,

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Hector was in the room.

Each night the beam from a street
lamp streaked through Laury’s window,
painting a ghostly stripe down the wall.
By this faint light Laury would try to
follow Hector’s silent movements, try to
describe to his own satisfaction the
dark, shapeless objects which Hector
carried in his hands.

One cold November night Laury ex-
perienced something which put a sudden
stop to his sleepless night vigils. Hec-
tor was out later than ever. Laury had
been staring endlessly at the oblong
frame of light formed on the wall by
the street lamp, fighting the fatique that
was gnawing, at his mind. In the cen-
ter of the light was a black shadow
formed by some object on Hector’s
desk. Laury gasped and sat upright.
It was the shadow of a man !

Frantically he tugged at the cord on
his bed lamp. The light came on, sweep-
ing the shadows into the corners of the
room. There was nothing on top of
the roll desk but the row of little black
books, held together by clumsy pottery
book-ends.

Laury’s chuckle was a hollow, humor-
less sound. He switched off the light,
his eyes struggling against the sudden
blankness.

The man was still there. Laury
knotted the flesh of his chest with, his
fist as though to stifle the panic in his
throat. He tried to analyze the shadow.
It was not the books, because he could
see the rectangular outline of them
at the bottom of the silhouette. The
strange shadow was above the books,
not standing, but squatting — as though
a twisted black gnome sat on the row
of books with his chin cupped in his
hands.

Laury jerked at the light cord and
rolled out of bed. Only the books were
on the desk. He pattered on bare feet
into the bathroom where the light was

brighter and went to the washbowl.

In a mirror he stared at the strange-
ness of his own face. The eye-sockets
were dark with bluish pits. The cheeks
were sunken and twisted like the
wretched cores of withered, dried up ap-
ples, The skin was a livid, unhealthy
white. “This is enough!” he snapped.
“You’ll go crazy this way!”

Another face suddenly appeared in
the doorway behind him, an angular,
tired face. “What goes on here?” said
Hector, smiling pleasantly enough.
“Look like you’d seen a ghost!”

f 'Nightmare, I guess,” Larry said,
forcing a smile.

Hector pressed a big hand on Laury’s
shoulder squeezing painfully. “I think
you’re studying too hard, friend,” he
said.

“I guess so,” Laury muttered.

That night Laury went to sleep before
his roommate.

gY THANKSGIVING week Laury
and Hector were on the best of
terms. Laury kept a control on his im-
agination and his physical health rap-
idly improved. He was not even alarmed
when Hector took down another one of
the Kancir books and proceeded to burn
some more of that nauseating incense.
“Don’t mind me,” Hector apologized.
“I like to mix witches’ brews, and play
around with mysteries. Sort of a hobby,
y’know.”

Laury joked about it, but he minded
enough to get out of the house for the
rest of the day. In the evening he made
a point of coming back to the room as
soon as Hector was gone. The little
black book was back in place on its
shelf.

“Might as well settle this silly busi-
ness once and) for all,” he decided.

Quickly undressing, Laury carried
the, book to bed with him. The title
was: Who Stalk By Night: Laury read

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

until the words swam before his eyes
and sleep, was irresistible. He was
scarcely awake enough to replace the
book on its shelf and switch out the
light.

He slept so late the next morning that
Hector, for a change, was up first.

“Snap out of that trance, brother,”
Hector urged, shaking Laury roughly
awake. “You don’t want to miss Mrs.
Wolfe’s turkey dinner. See you down-
stairs ! ”

The room still smelled faintly of Hec-
tor’s incense. Laury opened the win-
dows and dressed briskly in a flood of
fresh air.

Halfway down the stairs Laury met'
Hector coming up again. The tall
youth’s face was twisted and purple
with emotion. “It’s Nina!” he gasped.
“In the infirmary I The doctor said
severe shock!”

They stared at each other and then
scrambled headlong down the stairs.

p^JOT a word, passed between the
roommates on the taxi ride to the
hospital. They fought each other to
be first at Nina’s bedside. Laury got
hold of her hand and managed to say
everything with his eyes. Hector stood
looking down at the girl his face reflect-
ing every twisted line of agony that
smiled weakly from her pillow.

Nina’s purple lips were loose and
trembling. Her body was jammed stiff-
ly under the sheet and little shudders
rippled up from her hips to her shoul-
ders.

It took the girl all day to tell her story
— in.broken little bits, between nervous
spasms. Hector and Laury heard part
of it; the rest they gathered from the
doctor and Nina’s mother.

The night before, Nina had gone out
as usual with Hector. They drove
Nina’s car, since Hector didn’t own one.

There was a quarrel of some sort,

and Nina dropped Hector at the board-
ing house shortly after midnight, driv-
ing home alone. Her sorority was only
two blocks down the street at the point
where University Hill dipped steeply
away from the campus.

She parked on the down slope. When
she bent to lock the car she saw a mov-
ing shadow behind her and heard the
sound of heavy breathing.

She fought the frantic urge to run,
and stepped slowly along the walk.
When she moved the shadow moved.
She tried to be casual but her whistle
gurgled through stiff lips. She broke
into a trot and the shadow trotted after.

The house was far back from the
street. She ran across the lawn, lungs
bursting, screams sputtering out like
matches in her hot throat. In the deep
shade by the house the shadow charged
out of blackness, landing heavily on her
back. She fell and a body sprawled
over her, jamming her face into dead
grass, choking her outcry.

Strong gloved fingers peeled off her
own gloves, wadded them into a ball,
and crammed them in her mouth. The
hands fumbled under her fur coat, and
she felt her dress ripping at the waist,
and that was the worst moment of all,
but the creature only wanted the belt
to tie her hands.

The man sat on Nina’s back and
fumbled through her purse. She prayed
that this was robbery but he tossed the
purse aside and groped in her pockets.
Her car keys came out with a jingle.
Then the man twisted her arms and
forced her to walk back to the car.
He held her while he tested the keys
in the door. • Satisfied, he pulled her out
into the dark street and forced her
down, flat on her back on the hard
pavement about thirty feet in front of
her car.

The man stooped over her and slowly
his two hands bit into her arms. He

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

raised her body at the waist until her
head was high above the pavement.
Suddenly she sensed that he was going
to beat her head on the cement with
all his strength. She wriggled desper-
ately and at the same instant a car
engine roared into life. Lights stabbed
out of a driveway, ripping the black
night in half. The attacker quickly
hid his face, dropped her with an oath,
and raced away into darkness!

' JpHE roommates had nothing to say
about Nina’s story on the ride home,
or after.

Hector’s movements were restless,
almost feverish. He kept striding
around the room, watching Laury fur-
tively.

“How did you sleep last night?”
Hector demanded suddenly.

The gasp died in Laury’s throat.
“Pretty good,” he said. “Didn’t even
hear you come in.”

“Oh, I never turn on the lights,”
Hector said. He jabbed the stem of
his pipe at the book titled, Who Stalk
By Night. “Have you read that?” he
snapped.

The flesh tightened around Laury’s
throat. He tried to look unconcerned.
“No! No, I never read them anymore.
One was enough 1”

Laury could have sworn that Hector’s
taut, nervous muscles relaxed and his
breath hissed out in a 'sigh of relief 1

Laury waited, trembling with im-
patience, until Hector left the house
on an errand. As soon as the front
door slammed, he snatched the book
from the desk. Feverishly he thumbed,
the pages. It couldn’t be possible, and
yet he was sure he had read — Yes,
there it was:

With great effort, and fearsome
sounds issuing from his throat,
he made the woman to lie down

upon the paving stones . Once,
twice, thrice he lifted the body
high in his arms and swung it, as
a man might swing a threshing-
sack, hard upon the stones until
the skull and face were something
less than human .

He left the body to lie, ugly in
„ death, and turned to the coach.
Releasing the brake, he held the
heavy wheel by the sheer strength
of his muscles. Spoke by spoke
■he allowed the vehicle to roll pon-
derously down the slope, until the
crushing weight of the giant wheel
had passed over the body.

Free of his hands the coach .
thundered down the pavement to
Shatter itself against a boulder.

To all appearances death would
be by accident— a .woman crushed
by a run-away carriage.

Was there any doubt now? There
was the story between the pages of
Hector’s book, and last night at mid-
night the murderer had come to life!

Laury dropped the book on the desk
and pressed his face in his hands. Nina,
that this should happen to you!

CHAPTER V

T IEUTENANT NED CREWS was
not the traditional police detective.
Instead of asking questions' himself he
waited stubbornly for others to make
conversation, to which he contributed
only non-committal grunts.

Thick-bodied, a big head embedded
deeply in the cavity of his sloping shoul-
ders, ears and eyes marked, with puffy
scars, the lieutenant could have passed
for a battered ex-heavyweight. The
mahogany-leather rocker groaned
feebly under his bulky six-feet-three,
dressed in an ill-fitting tweed suit.
Laury and Hector sat stiffly on the

THg MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

bed looking alternately at the detec-
tive’s frown and at each other.

“Are there any clues at all, Lieu-
tenant?” Hector inquired. “I’m sort
of an apprentice criminologist. If I
had any lead at all, I might be able
to offer something — ”

The lieutenant shifted his bulk.
“The keys,” he muttered. “No trace
of the car keys yet.”

“The fellow made off with ’em, eh?”
said Hector, his eyes focussing severely
on Laury. “Well, why don’t you start
out by searching our room, Lieutenant?
After all, we come under suspicion,
don’t we? We knew something about
the girl’s habits. I suppose if you dug
down deep inside either of us, you
might find some peculiar twist that
would pass for a motive.”

For answer the lieutenant strolled
around the room poking his finger into
a couple of drawers. He paused briefly
before the long shelf of crime literature,
toyed with Hector’s chemical apparatus,
and then came to the big mahogany
desk and the row of black leather books.
One book still lay by itself.

Laury could scarcely restrain a gasp
when the detective picked up the book
and carelessly thumbed the thin pages.
A ragged strip of black blotter-paper
fell out of the book, drifting to the
floor, and the lieutenant’s finger slid
into its place. He began to read.

Laury tried to look at Hector but a
strange paralysis of motion held his
head in an iron grasp. His eyes were
glued on Hector’s bookmark. Fan-
tastically, the strip of paper, edges care-
lessly torn, seemed to assume the shape
of a little black man — not a real man,
just the black silhouette of a tiny dwarf,
hopping from one foot to the other,
arms gesticulating wildly, head bobbing
up and down as though in frantic
speech.

There was a strange, hoarse voice

and Laury realized that his own lips
were speaking: “Lieutenant! There —
there’s something I’d like to know! ”

Lieutenant Crews looked up, his eyes
tightly squinting. He snapped the book
shut.

Laury knotted and unknotted his
fists. Why had he spoken? What
was his crazy imagination doing to
him? It was Hector who should have
been afraid, who should have tried to
stop the lieutenant from reading that
book. This Laury Grenfall, coming
to the rescue of his roommate, was a
stranger to himself.

“Look here,” Laury blurted, lamely.
“We — we’re — Hector and I— we’re

pretty fond of Nina Wolfe. We’d like
to know why anyone should want to
harm her, of all poeple?”

“Harm?” Hector Baum leaped off
the bed, pacing the floor in long, nerv-
ous strides. “Kill is the word, I should
say! That was no ordinary attacker
last night! Let me tell you something!
Lots of people think that passion is a
single emotion. I know different. Really
it’s a crazy mixture of emotions, and
you can’t always say where or how
it will vent itself — sometimes in love,
sometimes in jealousy, sometimes in
murder !”

“Who could possbly have a feeling
like that toward Nina Wolfe?” Laury
demanded.

Hector turned fiercely on his room-
mate. “Who couldn’t!” he snapped.

For the first time Lieutenant Crews'
eyes appeared to be wide awake. “You
seem to understand a murderer’s psy-
chology,” he said to Hector.

Hector shrugged impatiently. “Un-
derstand?” he said. “Of course I under-
stand murder. I am a student of mur-
der!”

TC'OR the next few weeks Laury could
detect no outward changes in his

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

strange relationship with Hector Baum.
They were both cordial enough, but
Laury knew that the deep inward senses
of both were alert, studying each other.

During the holidays Laury was left
alone; the atmosphere, in Hector’s
absence, seemed to be cleaner in more
ways than one.

Then Hector returned, friendlier than
before; the white snow season arrived
overnight, and skating on Colfax Lake
was everybody's sport.

It was a full month before Laury
again surprised Hector reading one of
the little black books. Hector casually
laid the book aside. “I’m taking Nina
skating tonight,” he informed him.
“Thought some lively night air would
do her good.” ,

Laury agreed, but the old queer dread
began to gnaw at him. He waited rest-
lessly until his roommate was gone
for the evening before he dared to
look at Hector’s book.

Laury stared at the title and felt the
hairs tingling on his scalp: The Frozen
Death l

He thumbed quickly through the
pages, skimming the words until his
eyes snatched at a fragment of a para-
graph:

. at the far edges after the
warmth of day the ice was thin
and treacherous. A quick shove ,
a scream lost in distance, and the
body would be swallowed in icy
oblivion.

The cold of the night would seal
the break and tight enclose the
watery tomb.

The book dropped from Laury’s stiff-
ened fingers. Hector Baum was skating
with Nina I

For a moment the panic was like a
cold hand at his throat. Then he
snatched his coat from a hook and raced

out of the house and across lots to the
lake.

A quick shove, a scream lost in dis-
tance — Nina! It would be so easy

to drown a woman in a frozen lake!

jpHE skaters were thickest along
Lake avenue where the street lamps
cast little puddles of light on the ice
through the skeleton branches of great
oaks. Laury recognized Otis Peebles
skating near a huge bonfire.

“Seen Nina and Hector?” Laury
panted.

“Yeah they’re around,” said Otis,
his clownish body cutting figure-eights
around Laury. “Must be over on
Shangri-La. That’s strictly Lover’s
Lane over there.”

“How long?” Laury gasped.

“Haven’t seen ’em for an hour. What
gives? You’re pale as a snow man.”

Laury darted across the slippery ice
toward the dark huddle of an island in
the middle of the lake. Very few
skaters ever ventured to Shangri-La,
where the night was too dark for sport.

Laury scuttled along the edge of the
island, looking for moving shadows
against the snow. He almost stumbled
over a long log that projected onto the
ice. Two live shadows were crouched
low, the larger one stooping queerly
over the other. The smaller shadow
seemed to bend backward in a weird
semi-circle and two long arms came
together at its throat. Hoarse, panting
breath was the only sound.

Laury slid into the man without a
word, ripping his arms from the
woman’s body and sprawling with him
on the sharp grooves of ice. They
fought silently, rolling and sliding,
neither one able to gain his feet. Hector
— Laury knew it was he — knotted the
muscles of his long arms trying to break
the tight loop of Laury’s arms, Laury
felt a strange, wonderful elation in the

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

unexpected strength of his own grip.

Far in the distance, it seemed, out-
side this crazy, shadowy world that
rolled around their heads, a woman
screamed and faint shouts answered.

Laury’s head scraped and. pounded
on the ice and he dug his teeth into
Hector’s shoulder to stop the grinding
of his jaws. Slowly the body pressed
in his arms seemed to give way and
the breath came out in little choking
spasms.

Lights suddenly danced abound the
fighters and many hands tugged at their
bodies. Voices babbled. They had to
pry loose Laury’s arms.

Laury was jerked to his feet. Hec-
tor hung limply in someone’s arms.
A hot torch was pushed between their
faces and a girl screamed: <r Laury!”

“You murderer!” Laury cried, push-
ing his face at Hector.

Nina Wolfe’s head bobbed between
them and her hands pawed at Laury’s
lapels. “What are you saying, Laury?
What are you trying to do?”

Laury tried to shake off the dull
throb in his brain. “He — he was going
to kill you!” he stammered. “I saw —
I saw his hands on your throat! ”

Nina flung herself away and threw
her arms around Hector’s neck. “Laury,
you must be mad!” she gasped. “Hec-
tor just asked me to marry him.”

CHAPTER VI

J AURY never remembered just how
he escaped that circle of staring
faces. Hector came in at midnight with-
out a word.

The roommates lay silently in their
twin beds and it seemed to Laury that
even in the darkness they were watch-
ing each other, aware of every fitful
movement through the whole long night.

The next day was a Saturday. After
a glum, wordless breakfast Hector Very

deliberately proceeded to read the book
which had so alarmed Laury.

Laury tried to study but he could
feel Hector’s eyes glancing furtively at
his back, boring into his thoughts.

Did the man exercise some hypnotic
power, that it was possible to be so
afraid of him and yet lack the will to
do anything about it? That first show
of courage last night was a miserable
fiasco! Hector had not even read The
Frozen Death before he went skating
with Nina.

As an afterthought, Hector brewed
some more of the odious incense which
quickly drove Laury out of the house.
Hector ignored Laury’s exit. His long
body was knotted up in the chair, as
though he personally felt the agonies of
the story.

/ Laury stayed away until late evening
to avoid Hector, but they met again
on the walk in front of the boarding
house.

The long hedge of evergreens was
spotted 'with Christmas lights, like a
row of brightly-plumed cadets. Laury
and Hector stood ankle-deep in snow
breathing frosty spectres around their
heads.

Hector calmly lighted a cigarette be-
fore he spoke. “I’ve got a date with
Nina,” he said, a sneer uncurling on
his lips. “Will that be all right with
you?”

“I wish I knew,” Laury said boldly.

“I’m going to marry her. What do
you know about that?”

Hector walked straight toward the
street, his shoulder crowding Laury into
deep snow. Laury shuddered at the
contact, which was somehow colder than
the night coldness. He hurried up to
the empty room.

There was no avoiding the book this
time. Laury quickly undressed, dived
into bed, and gulped down the tale like
a starving man.

ioo

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

There were hints of drownings in icy
lakes, but actually The Frozen Death
was the stab of a sharp, thick icicle,
which melted into the victim’s blood,
leaving only the gaping wound and no
weapon. Laury read until his mind
was drugged with mounting horror. It
seemed that the very pages gave off
a sickening, noxious perfume. He hurled
the book angrily in the direction of
Hector’s desk.

“It’s all damned nonsense! ” he grum-
bled. “It must be nonsense ! ”

He lay back wearily on the pillow
and watched the cobwebs on the ceil-
ing spin themselves into long cones that
fattened and hardened into huge, fang-
like icicles.

¥ A.URY woke with a feeling of un-
utterable content. The morning
had no room for black doubts. The
frost on the window, the smell of fried
bacon, the steady clink, clink of auto
chains — these were sane, believable
things. Even Hector Baum seemed
handsome and very human in sleep.
How could a man be afraid of anything,
when life was like this?

He dressed with great energy. A
brisk walk in the chill peace of dawn
should start the day right. Huddled in
a topcoat, Laury stepped from Mrs.
Wolfe’s porch into a thick layer of snow,
fresh fallen. The evergreen hedge spar-
kled with bright colors. He paused,
struck with that annoying sense of
something wrong, but he couldn’t ac-
count for it.

He had almost reached the hedge,
trying vainly to follow the line of the
sidewalk, when his foot tripped on
something long and stiff, buried in the
snow. He fumbled in the stuff for a
fallen branch. His gloved fingers
grasped something hard and crooked,
and out of the snow emerged a human
foot.

Shrieking like a woman, Laury pawed
at the drift, exposing legs and a fat,
twisted trunk, and finally the ghastly
frozen head, clotted with crystals of
blood. It was the body of Otis Peebles,
and out of the base of his bare throat
protruded the butt of a huge icicle!

Laury’s mind blanked. Somewhere
along the street he ran into a man,
tugged at his arm, and babbled, “Dead
man! Murder! Must call police. Mrs.
Wolfe’s boarding house. My friend —
Otis Peebles, my friend!”

CHAPTER VII

MURDER TERRORIZES

UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

Two Dead, Girl Attacked; Police
Suspect Homicidal Maniac
Prowling City

r jpHERE was no denying the head-
lines, the crowds of onlookers lin-
ing the street, or the little clusters of
policemen tramping in and out of .the
house. Murder had reached Mrs.
Wolfe’s doorstep.

Hector Baum followed the detec-
tives around all day, jotting notes on
a little pad, but Laury sat stiffly in his
room, answering questions automati-
cally, unable to mouth his fantastic se-
cret. Murderers come to life out of
storybooks! Things like that didn’t
happen in a sane world.

Lieutenant Crews was in and out,
poking fat fingers aimlessly in drawers,
or standing, hands on hips, waiting for
Laury to speak. It was night again
before the lieutenant shrugged and gave
up — the last officer , to leave.

Laury felt the gloomy house closing
in on him again. He caught the lieu-
tenant on the stairs, clutched at his
thick arm.

“Well?” growled the detective.

“Listen,” Laury whispered. “There

THE MAN 'WHO LOST) HIS SHADOW

101

is something. Don’t ask me to tell you
now. If only I was sure; I’ve got to
have proof! Is there any clue, any
clue at all, that might be traced to this
murderer ? I want to help, believe me!”

The detective chewed his thick lips
doubtfully. “I can tell you one thing,”
he said: “I’m looking for a thin, curved
piece of red glass.”

That was all he would say. At the
time Laury did not understand.

J ^AURY gave Mrs. Wolfe a week’s
notice. How he would live through
a week of sleepless, terrifying nights
was too much even to consider, but he
dared not run away under the eyes
of the police.

On the second evening of that ter-
rible week he noticed the missing book.
There were six in the Kancir set, but
Laury counted ■mly five on the desk.
Ecstasy and Terror, Who Stalk By
Night, The Frozen Death, This Solid
Flesh, and Return To Dust — what title
was missing?

He conducted a reckless search
through Hector’s belongings and found
the book crammed into an old pair of
boots: The Dripping Heart.

Hastily, with quick, nervous glances
at the door, he scanned the story. At
the end his hands were moist with cold
sweat and his teeth rattled and grated
uncontrollably. The book told of a
lover who cut the living heart out of
his rival and presented it as a wedding
gift to his bride!

This was too horrible even to con-
sider; he was sorry he had ever read
the stuff. Damn it, he would have the
whole thing out with Hector tonight!
Danger face to face was not half as
dreadful as the endless, uncertain dark.

Hector was late as ever. He scarcely
glanced at Laury, marching to his closet
and jerking out a big overnight bag.
He threw the bag on his bed and began

tossing articles into it from a bureau
drawer.

Laury tightened his narrow shoulders
and clutched at Hector’s arm. “What
are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m eloping with Nina Wolfe, that’s
what!” Hector snarled through set
teeth.

Laury thought of the story he had
just read and something seemed to give
way deep in his chest, but he would not
retreat. He jerked three of the Kancir
books from the desk and pushed them
at Hector.

“Hector, I’ve read these books,” he
said coldly. , “Do you know what I
mean?”

Hector’s scragged brows stretched to
a thin line. “You have read them?” he
breathed, and let the books slide from
his fingers to the floor. “So have I,
Laury.”

“This one too ! ” Laury held up The
Dripping Heart.

They stood inches apart, both bodies
trembling with unnatural tension. Hec-
tor’s eyes bulged and his head waggled
from side to side.

Simultaneously, the eyes of both
lighted on an object which Hector had
just tossed into the bag. In the bot-
tom half of a flat, oblong box, sheathed
snugly in red felt, was a long gleaming
razor.

Like runners released at the shot of
a gun they dived for the deadly blade.
Laury’s hand closed on the box and he
rolled over once on the bed, coming up
with the razor dangling from his fingers.

Hector did a strange thing then. His
legs crumpled and his long body folded
into a quivering heap on the floor. His
face was an inhuman mask, the bones
almost bursting from the livid flesh.
The gasps from his throat were like
stifled screams. A hand shot out,
clutching the door knob and dragging
his body, through the door, where it

102

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

slithered, snake-like, down the stairs
gathering legs and arms as it reached
the lower hall to bolt wildly through
the door.

T AURY hooked a chair under the
door handle. ‘'Tonight,” he mut-
tered, "I will sleep alone.”

He sat down heavily on the bed, be-
wildered by Hector’s actions. If only
there was a single honest clue, the kind
that police could understand!

A piece of red glass — he tried to fit
the lieutenant’s clue into the picture of
Otis Peebles’ body lying in' the snow.
What had he seen- that morning?

Suddenly, as clearly as though he
were standing there on Mrs. Wolfe’s
porch, Laury recalled the dawn haze
and the queer arrangement of Christ-
mas lights on the evergreen hedge. Mrs.
Wolfe was always forgetting to turn
them off at night, but that awful morn-
ing only the lights on the left side of
the hedge were burning.

A piece of red glass, thinand curved.
Of course! On certain types of strings,
if a single bulb is broken, the whole
circuit goes out. The murderer must
have broken one of the red light globes!

It didn’t take any detective mind
to guess the Lieutenant’s clue. If a
piece of broken bulb was missing it
might be embedded in the murderer’s
rubber heels or caught in his clothing.
Immediately Laury was scrambling on
hands and knees through the closet,
peering at the heels and soles of Hec-
tor’s shoes, but there was no sign of
red glass on any of them.

Moving out of the closet, Laury’s
foot struck a hidden shoe and kicked
it into the light. Some crumbs of mud
broke loose from the sole and he swept
them into his palm. Winking up at
him, buried in the biggest clod, was a
long, oval sliver of red glass.

The terrifying, indescribable sickness

which he had felt on the bloody library
steps came back to him. He had to
lie flat on the bed.

The shoe was a tan summer Oxford
— his own shoe!

His mind seemed to shatter like an
exploding skyrocket. Desperately, he
tried to recollect his frantic, winged
thoughts: Could Hector Baum have
worn his roommate’s shoes — shoes kept
shelved in winter? Could he have dis-
guised himself in Laury’s clothing to
carry out his murderous plots?

Laury managed to roll off the bed
and drag out a pair of Hector’s oxfords.
His own small feet were lost in them.
Hector could not possibly have squeezed
his feet into those guilty shoes 1

CHAPTER VIII

J^AURY did not sleep that night. His
body snarled itself crazily in the
blankets, while his mind snatched at
possibilities only to toss them aside.

If Hector was not the murderer, then
who ?

Who else could have read those
books, could have borrowed Laury’s
shoes, and gone out by night to kill?
Who else— — ?

The college chimes tolled three a.m.,
sounding like a death-knell in his heart.

One, who else? Two, who else?
Three

Suddenly a cry tore itself out of his
throat and he leaped wildly out of bed.
He ripped coats and trousers off of
hooks, jabbed his hands into pockets,
and tossed the garments into a pile.
His own. spring suit was the last. In
the right hand pants pocket he found
them — the missing keys to Nina Wolfe’s
car.

The search grew in frenzy. A pair
of black silk gloves, seldom worn, were
missing from his trunk.

Terror took hold of him, dancing his

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS SHADOW

103

body like a puppet on a string. Some-
how he found himself dressed in a coat,
floundering drunkenly down the shad-
owy stairway. Dawn had barely touched
the sky when he was out of the house,
plowing through snow to the library.

He kneeled down beside the mud-
cutter, where Professor Haycroft had
died. With his eyes clamped shut Laury
enacted in his mind a terrible murder
with a silver carving knife.

The thing that he sought gradually
came to mind. Unerringly, guided by
a dark, subconscious memory, he

marched toward Colfax Lake. At a

spot where the roots of two great oaks
were wedded firmly together, he
crouched beside the lake, broke the ice,
and fumbled in the icy water.

The flat rock w ! as there all right. He
raised an edge of it and pulled out a
soggy lump of cloth — two stained black
gloves pierced in the middle by a long
silver carving knife.

There was the final proof: Hector
Baum was no murderer . Laurens Gren-
fall was the man who read of murder
and rose from his bed in sleep to match
the deed !

'^^7' ALLS have a way of tightening
like a strangle-hold about a man
who looks too long upon them. Two
weeks of self-imprisonment shriveled
Laury Grenfall into a husk.

It was awful to live in the same room
with a murderer— a thousand times
worse to live in the same soul with one!
A man didn’t have to voice his thoughts.
They spoke out to him from the
shadows.

Psychologists know something of
nightmares and sleep-walking, but -what
of men who walk in sleep to murder?

Can the mind of a man be made
up of two halves, independent of each
other, good and bad, conscious and sub-
conscious? What of the books?

Was there really a Gypsy curse on the
works of Kancir, seeping into the
readers’ mind like an evil, cancerous
disease? . . The incense! Was that

strange chemical brew truly a protec-
tion, as the book said, or was that warn-
ing passage of verse a monstrous trick?
Was the incense a fiendishly concocted
poison paralyzing the moral processes
of the mind? . .

Days dragged by. The police were
oddly silent. What did they know, what
had they guessed of the truth? Damn
them! Why did they dangle a man
on a spit, roasting him alive over the
agonizing flames of doubt?

Why didn’t they come and take him?
Anything to escape that room, those
throbbing walls, that damnable Kancir
and his horrid, fascinating secrets. Hec-
tor Baum was right: there was a strange
magnetism in the books which could
hardly be denied. The reading of them
had become an insidious habit; to do
without them was like slow starvation.

Two books were still unread. Laury
felt somehow that the answer to his
dilemma was in the books themselves,
that there was no escape from their
evil influence until he had read them
all. Could he risk it? Would the in-
cense really protect him? Was it that
which had saved the soul of Hector
Baum?

the fourteenth night of self-tor-
ture' Laury could stand the accus-
ing shadows no longer. He jerked a
book from the shelf and fumbled the
pages. Carefully he studied the for-
mula for incense. The Latin symbols
meant nothing but the numerals were
understandable: He had watched Hec-
tor mixing the stuff:

Five drops of that tkickish yellow
liquid in the crucible; a thimble of
water; - heat slowly and stir in two
pinches of the white powder.

104

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Enchanted he watched the bubbling
yellow scum change to green, then blue,
then purple, to become at last a bright
blood red. Nauseating aromatic vapor
rose slowly from the crucible.

Laury pulled a chair into the light
of the crooked lamp-stand. He selected
the last of the six books — Return To
Dust — with trembling, ecstatic fingers,
half-eager, half-afraid, like a drug
addict preparing his potion.

He dragged slowly through the story,
Toward the last his breath flowed more
freely. There was nothing to fear in
this tale — nothing, that is, until the very
last page:

Damon had lost. Rolf had
escaped the death trap and had
found his- place in Celia’s heart.

So it was meant to be , Damon
reasoned. But he would not be
denied his own place. The note

would take care of that , the note
directing that his trunk be locked
and shipped to Celia and Rolf.

That done , he drew his knife,
wormed his way into, the trunk,
closed it upon himself, and plunged
the blade into his own heart.

Laury raised his head stiffly, numb-
ness seeping through his veins. The
lamplight cast the shadow of his head
and shoulders on the wall. To his hor-
ror the head seemed to be bloating to
huge, unnatural proportions and then he
saw that it was not his head at all but
the shadow of a tiny black dwarf stand-
ing on the man’s shoulders, dancing
weirdly, bending itself double as though
in raucous laughter.

Laury hid his face in fear-shrunken
hands. "God have mercy!” he moaned.
"I cannot remain awake forever 1”

«« SCIENTIFIC ODDITIES »»

By LYNN STANDISH

a CCORDING to some experts, the automobile
/| of 1942 is definitely a thing of the past in
jL JL performance and appearance as well as age
and once this war is over and the new models
appear no one will want to keep his 1942 car. In
fact, the post-war engine will be so efficient that
no one will be foolish enough to maintain the ex-
pensive 1942 engine. There will also be other im-
provements in looks as well as economy. The en-
gine will probably be placed in the rear to give the
driver greater vision, and diesel motors will be
found in many models.

About the only thing that will remain unchanged
will be the familiar names although new ones may
appear.

* * *

FT MAY be hard to believe but ilmenite, a sub-
stance blacker than coal, is used to produce
titanium dioxide,, the whitest substance known to
man.

* * *

LTHOUGH all the present production of nylon
is going into war production, the research
chemists of the Du Pont industries have not stopped
looking for, new uses for their product.--

The latest discovery to be announced is that
nylon can be used to produce screens that will
never rust or have to be painted. By weaving
single heavy strands of nlyon they have been able
to produce a strong screen which can be colored
for the life of the screen by introducing pigments
into the molten nylon, The screen Is flexible
enough to be used in the roll- type screens.

* * *

'T'HE trunk of an elephant has approximately
40,000 muscles and is the strongest single organ
possessed by an animal. Elephants have been
know to lift a ton or throw a man 120 feet using
their trunk.

* * *

A BOUT S 0% of the electrical power used in the
. *■ Ford plant to make a Pratt and Whitney en-
gine is produced by engines just recently com-
pleted.’ As the engines come off the assembly line
they are taken to the test rooms where they are
given a final check.

Instead of wasting the power produced, the huge
engines are coupled to generators which feed power
into the service lines of the shop. Just another
case of American ingenuity to help win the war.

SCIENTIFIC ODDITIES

105

A/TOST of us regard the earth’s surface as any-
1 A thing but smooth, but if we took the most
carefully manufactured and polished ball bearing
and expanded it to the earth’s size, its surface
would be rougher than our earth’s surface.

* * *

t'NGINEERING science has developed a mobile
2,500-kilowatt transformer substation that is
mounted on a truck for use in emergencies. If
a town or area suddenly is cut off from its regular
supply of power through a bombing or through
accident, the truck can be rushed there in a short
time to supply the vital power until the necessary
repairs are made. The transformer is able to take
high-voltage current from the transmission lines
and reduce the voltage so that it can continue its
journey along lower voltage lines or even reduce
the voltage to that required by the consumers of
the town. Thus war plants would not have to
cease production if the power station was knocked
out by enemy bombs providing the main power
lines were still up.

v * ♦

A LITTLE over a year ago, a well was being
^ drilled for water in Eastern Wyoming when
at a depth of 156 feet a gas was' given off. A sam-
ple of the gas was sent for analysis to the labora-
tory of the U. S. Geological Survey located in
Casper, Wyoming, where it was found to be 100%
nitrogen. This is supposed to be the first nitrogen
gas .well ever discovered.

* * *

PLANTERS growing pineapples in Queensland,
4 Australia, have discovered that calcium carbide
can be used to shorten the growing time of their
crops.

The calcium carbide is placed in the heart of the
leaf cluster when the plant is in bud and the rain
reacts with it to produce acetylene gas which has-
tens the growing. Thus more crops can be pro-
duced each year due to the shorter growing period.

* * *

A NEW source of riboflavin, one of our most

1 important vitamins, may have been found in
whey, which is an almost useless dairy by-product,
according, to Dr. A. Leviton of the Bureau of Dairy
Industry in the 0. S. Department of Agriculture.
He has discovered that by condensing whey to a
point where milk sugar crystals are formed that
riboflavin is absorbed on the crystals. In tests he
has been able to produce almost 300 micrograms
of the vitamin for one grain of milk sugar.

v * *

"P ECENTLY a new alloy was perfected by
A metallurgists in the Westinghouse laboratories
so that we are no longer dependent upon China
and Burma for tungsten to produce cutting steel.
Instead the new alloy contains molybdenum which
is very plentiful in the U. S., where about 90% of
the world’s- supply is found. In fact, the new alloy

has produced such good results and is so much
cheaper than the tungsten alloy that it will con-
tinue to be used even after the war.

v * *

A MONG human workers it is usually pretty
easy to spot the loafers. But among hens
this was a difficult problem — that is, until the New
York State College of Agriculture conducted a
little research.

They discovered that if a hen has slick feathers
and yellow shanks at the close of the laying year,
they have been loafing on the job. The food they
have eaten has been used to grow new feathers.

The sure signs of the hard workers are dry, frayed
feathers, bright red comb, faded beak and shanks,
soft skin, pliable abdomen, and well spread bones.
Most of their feed has been converted into the
laying of eggs. These are the hens to keep while
the loafers should be sent to- market.

So gold-bricking hens beware. We know your
secret and you’d better get on the job or else grace
the table for someone’s Sunday dinner.

* * v

T TSING wood from wrecked enemy planes for
the Communion rail, the men of an R.A.F.
Wellington night bomber wing in North Africa re-
cently built their own “parish church” in the des-
ert.

The church consists of two tents fronted by an
ancient Arab archway, and topped by a wooden
cross. Shell cases serve as altar vases, bomb con-
tainers as seats, and old flare boxes as choir stalls.
The sandy floor was lowered two feet to provide
sufficient headroom. Steps were then cut, and large
strips of canvas stretched over the dunes for a
carpet.

An organ, bought with money subscribed by the
fliers, makes the chapel complete. In addition to
regular Sunday services, there are daily services
and Bible classes. The church is also used for
classical concerts.

All squadrons — and men of all denominations —
took part in the work, each unit volunteering to
construct a particular section.

* * *

DEFORE the war, storage tanks for oil, gas, and
other volatile liquids were coated with alum-
inum paint which was able to deflect heat and
thus kept the tanks cool. But in time of war
aluminum painted tanks make an excellent target
for bombing planes and thus some substitute had
to be found.

Over a year ago, Paul L. Hexter, vice president
of the Arco Company, announced that after much
experiment and research his company had perfected
a paint that would deflect heat and yet be hardly
visible from the air. The paint has been produced
in several colors so that it will blend with green
foliage, black earth, or even the desert tan. After
successfully passing rigid army and navy tests, the
new paint is now being widely x used.

ILLUSTRATED BY ARNOLD KOHN

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AS JOE MAYBRICK, an inter- us haven’t ? 15
yUR ested spectator of life as it goes “Have you ever been around when
oh at Joe’s Mansion, a Van Benny’s hit some sucker for a dime
Buren street flop-house, put it: and gets only a nickel?” Joe asked.

“Benny the Pencil is a mooch with Willie said he hadn’t,

a menace. A menace to any guy what’s “Then what the hell am I telling

got the moola.” you this for?” Joe said in disgust,

Willie the Weep, to whom Joe voiced walking away from the hotel, desk,
the observation, asked: “Yuh don’t have,to rt get^so Hot about

“What’s Benny got, that the rest of it,” Willie shouted at thfc retreating fig-

107

108

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ure. “I’ve got my own .mooching to
take care of. An’ if you think — — ”
He stopped yelling when he discov-
ered that Joe had disappeared into
his office.

T>ENNY THE PENCIL, his patch-
work quilt of an overcoat flapping
around his ankles, stepped into the
Manhattan Tea Room. Not that it was
the sort of weather that made the wear-
ing of an overcoat necessary. An
August sun beat mercilessly down on
Chicago’s Loop and only those who
catered to the dictates of fashion wore
their jackets. But not Benny. He
wore his coat in all kinds of weather.

So hot was it, that Ripples, the fat
bartender, on seeing Benny come in,
said:

“Will you take that damned coat off,
Benny; things are hot enough around
here.” /

“So it’s hot. So what? So you’ll
sell more beer. So what?”

“So shut up,” Ripples yelled, “Ped-
dle those damned pencils and get out!”

“So ” Benny began; but Ripples

had turned away to go back to Traffic
Officer Finnegan, immersed in a Rac-
ing Form, at the far end of the bar.

“Phooie,” Benny spat out, his coal
black eyes venomous in the dark cav-
erns of their sockets.

He stood for a moment in silence,
a skinny hand jiggling the tin cup which
held twenty or twenty-five pencils.
Then, with a sudden swoop, he was on
his first victim: a truck driver.

“Buy a pencil and help a poor duff
out, mister,” he said in a monotone,
while the pencils chattered a rattling
accompaniment.

The truck driver, whose entire at-
tention was wrapped up in the stein
of beer he was fondling, turned a star-
tled face to Benny and said: “Huh?”
“Whassa matter? Yuh deaf?”

Benny snarled. “I said, will yuh buy
a pencil?”

The truck driver picked a nickel
up from out of the change, which lay
beside his beer and throwing it into
the cup, selected a pencil.

“Sure,”' he smiled agreeably, as he
pocketed the pencil. “And there’s a
nickel for it.”

A strange silence descended on the
Manhattan Tea Room. Something like'
the silence which precedes an artillery
barrage.

Ripples suddenly appeared before
the truck driver.

“Better toss another nickel in the
cup,” he softly suggested.

“Why?” the driver wanted to know.

“Don’t ask any questions; just do
like I say,” Ripples replied.

“Nuts to you — and to him too,” the
truck driver said, jerking his head to-
ward Benny. He returned to caress-
ing the beer stein as though his answer
had settled all further talk.

“O.. K., brother,” Ripples said as he
walked away. “But don’t say I didn’t
warn you.”

Benny had been a silent spectator to
the conversation.

“That your truck out there, mister?”
he asked..

“Yeah; why?”

“Be kind of tough if you walked
out and found a flat tire, wouldn’t it?”
Benny replied.

The trucker was no longer smiling
when he turned to face Benny again.

“Say, what the hell goes in this joint?
Does the bartender split on your take?
What’s all this double-talk, anyhow?”
he said, exasperation and anger min-
gling inharmoniously in his voice. “Now
beat it, bum, before I get mad!”

“So 0. K., mister,” Benny said, mov-
ing off to his next victim. “But it’d
be cheaper to throw another nickel in
the cup.”

THE TRUTHFUL PENCIL

109

The trucker gave Benny a sour look,
finished the beer in the stein, and went
out to his truck. And right into
trouble 1

A TRAFFIC cop on a horse was
busily engaged in writing out a
traffic violation ticket against a window
of the truck. Then, to fill the driver’s
cup of woe Jto the brim, he discovered
that one of his tires was flat. He stood
there, clenched hands on hips, stonily
looking at the flat tire.

“What a mess,’ J he groaned, “a traf-
fic ticket and a flat tire.” Then he
remembered Ripples’ warning and
Benny’s curious remark about a flat
tire.

Benny had just started his spiel to
a dark-haired, quiet-faced man at the
bar when he felt a heavy hand on his
shoulder.

So hard did the trucker pull Benny
around, that he almost pulled him out
of his coat.

<r Why you no good son of a bum!
You—”

His anger was so great Benny cow-
ered back in fear. But before the
trucker could act, Finnegan had him
by the arm.

“Easy there, bud,” Finnegan cau-
tioned. He kept a restraining hand on
the trucker’s arm. “Easy does it. Now
what’s the trouble?”

“Why, you heard the whole thing,
Officer,” the trucker ranted. “This
bum is to blame for the whole thing.”

“To blame for what?”

“My flat tire I ”

Finnegan sighed windily. There
were times, such as now, when he
wished that Benny would go to some
other patrolman’s beat.

“Look, buddy,” Finnegan explained,
“the bum couldn’t have had anything
to do with it, because he was here all

the time. And he didn’t know that you
were only going to give him a nickel.
Besides, Ripples told you to give him
a dime. Now don’t ask me why, but
if you’d have given him a dime, noth-
ing would have happened.”

“Don’t ask me why! Don’t ask me
why!” the trucker said sarcastically.
“That’s all I get. Well, I’m asking:
Why?”

“It’s like this, bud,” the burly police-
man explained somewhat lamely.
“Benny doesn’t like to take a nickel.
And he has a bad habit of wishing bad
luck on the guy who gives him one,
that’s all. Except that what Benny
wishes, usually happens.”

The trucker, his face suddenly pale,
backed away from Finnegan.

“Holy cats!” he whispered in fright.
“They’re all nuts in here!”

He turned and ran through the door
as though' pursued by the devil him-
self.

Strangely enough, Benny, who
should have been displaying some in-
terest in the conversation, had seem-
ingly forgotten the incident altogether.
The quiet-faced man and he were si-
lently facing each other.

Their eyes seemed to probe from
behind the veils of their lids, as though
in search of something which each knew
must be there.

A V-shaped smile, saturnine and
malicious, came into life on the quiet
face of the slender stranger.

“They would have hanged you as a
witch, in the Salem days,” the stranger
said softly.

Benny looked blank.

The V smile deepened on the stranr
ger’s face until it seemed to end at
his ears.

“So you want me to buy a pencil?”
he asked.

He began to laugh softly, slyly.

“No, I will not buy; instead, we

110

fantastic adventures

will trade. This pencil, for one of
yours.”

With that, he reached into the inner
pocket of his jacket and pulled out a
pencil similar to those' Benny carried
in his cup.

T) ENNY took the proffered pencil and
looked at*. -it suspiciously. But it
seemed no different from any of his,
except that his cairied the manufactur-
er's name.

“Looks all right,” Benny grinned,
showing yellow stumps of teeth.

“And why shouldn’t it be all right?”
the stranger asked.

Benny shrugged his shoulders, mak-
ing his overcoat flap. For a second
the stranger's reference to witches was
clear. All Benny needed just then was
a broomstick and a black cat to be in
character. With, his long, thin, curv-
ing nose, which seemed to be reaching
toward his pointed, out-thrust chin; his
skinny, taloned hands; his dark, ma-
levolent eyes — no wonder some people
shied clear of him.

“Coming from you,” Benny went on,
“it makes me wonder.”

The stranger's eyes went dark and
piercing in a sudden intense look'.
Benny’s head nodded once, as though a
message had been conveyed and ac-
knowledged. Then, without another
word, Benny turned and walked out of
the Manhattan Tea Room.

It was the tail end of the morning
when Benny showed up before the
blank, frosted-glass door which was the
entrance to the Joe Lacey Enterprises.

J^ENNY walked past the two mus-
cle-men who were seated in the
outer office and opened the door to
Joe’s private sanctum. Joe was on the
phone speaking to one of his “enter-
prises.”

“Listen, ya jerk,” Joe was saying,

“when I send a guy down for a hundred,
I don’t want him to come back with
fifty.”

Even. Benny could hear the fright-
ened, stutter which came from the ear-
piece of the cradle phone.

“Yeah, yeah,” Joe’s rasping voice an-
swered the stutter. "“I know business
is bad. But that’s your lookout, not
.mine. And if you don’t want to go
out of business altogether, just see my
boys when they come around!”

With those parting words of wisdom,
'Joe slammed the phone down on its
cradle and said to Benny:

“What the hell do you want? Money,
I suppose. I’ve got enough of your
pencils to go into business for myself.
But do you ever stay away from me?
No, not you, you State Street mooch.
Well, come herel” Joe suddenly yelled
to the frightened scarecrow. “This is
the last time you mooch me.”

“What’re ya gonna do, Joe,” Benny
wailed as he sidled over to the desk
where Lacey was sitting.

“This is the last time, Benny,” Joe
said, as he pulled a pencil out of the
cup. His other hand pulled a coin out
of his vest pocket and tossed, it into
the tin cup. It was a nickel.

“Not a nickel!” Benny moaned.
“That’s bad luck!”

“Yeah, but that’s all they’re worth.
Now beat it. I’m busy.”

“So all right, Joe, but maybe you
won’t like that pencil,” Benny said to
himself as he went out.

Lacey, had taken the pencil the stran-
ger had given to Benny.

J OE LACEY was ah imposing-look-
ing man, particularly when seated at
a desk. He looked, in fact, as one would
expect a bank vice-president or a de-
partment store executive to look. His
regular features always gave .the im-
pression that their owner had just

THE TRUTHFUL PENCIL

111

stepped out from a barber chair. In
a word, Lacey was well-groomed.

Just now, however, a frown spoiled
the otherwise imposing appearance of
that face. Joe Lacey was worried. And
nervous.

He was twirling the pencil which he
had taken from Benny about in his
fingers when the phone rang suddenly.
Joe’s fingers tightened convulsively,
and the pencil snapped in two.

“Hello,” he said, his voice uncertain.

. “Yes, this is me, Slim, What d’ya
want now.”

He listened in silence for a few sec-
onds, then, almost in a panic, said:

“Now wait, Slim. Where am I going
to get a thousand dollars? You know
damn well the D.A. has got the heat
on and my collections are off. Make
it five hundred.”

His face, usually pink from massage,
had gone brick red. Perspiration had
begun to trickle down his plump cheeks.
He pulled a handkerchief from his
breast pocket and dabbed furiously at
the streaming pores.

The metallic whine of his caller’s
voice kept buzzing into his ear. He
listened to what Slim was saying, then
in a tired, hopeless voice said:

“All right, Slim. You win — as
usual. I don’t know where I’ll get it,
but you’11 have the cash tomorrow.
Yes,” he concluded, “at the usual
place.”

His eyes remained on the phone after
he had hung up. But they were empty.
He was no longer the rough, tough
character who had brow-beaten Benny.
He was just a tired old man right now.
A tired old man, with the sword of
Damocles hanging over his head. Only
it wasn’t a sword; it was Slim Masconi.

“I suppose this is the pay-off,” his
thoughts went. “Slim plays for keeps,
and all I got to do is miss just once,
and he’ll do just what he’s always

threatened. I’ll have to pay off.”
He sighed resignedly as his eyes came
to rest on the day’s newspaper lying
on his desk.

“Might as well stop worrying about
that,” he said aloud, as he turned the
news sheets till he reached the sport
pages. “Let’s see what’s going at the
tracks today.”

Joe Lacey had one bad habit, about
which everyone knew. He was a sucker
for the horses. Not just an ordinary
sucker. When Joe Lacey laid it on,
it was usually for a hundred. And
sometimes more.

The perusal of the day’s entries
started the germ of hope in his breast.
In his pocket was fifty dollars one of
his collectors had brought in.

“H’mm,” he whispered as he scanned
the list of entries at Lincoln Fields,
“so Pegasus is going today. Should
be a cinch, from the form. And he’ll
pay about ten to one.”

As he pulled a memo pad from a
desk drawer, he reached for the gold
pencil which was usually in a vest
pocket. The pen was there but not
its mate. Then he saw the broken half
of the pencil he had taken from Benny.

He sharpened it to a fine point with
a small pen knife and then wrote:
Harry:

Put this on Pegasus in the sixth
at Lincoln Fields. Right on the
schnozz, as usual.

Joe Lacey

He put the note and the fifty dollars
into a blank envelope and after sealing
it, called out:

“Tommy.”

One of the two muscle-men in the
outer office came in.

“Yeah, boss?”'

“Take this down to Harry Moore’s.
And get there before the sixth goes at
Lincoln Fields, understand?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Tommy an-

112

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

swered. And picking up the envelope,
he left for Harry Moore’s book, the
largest in the Loop.

Joe Lacey, like all other horse
players, was an optimist. Also a
chicken fancier. As was evident from
the eggs he hoped to collect from the
roost he had just feathered.

“Yep, that, five hundred will just
about be right,” he thought. “With col-
lections tomorrow up to snuff, I’ll get
another five hundred and that will take
care of Slim until next time, anyway.”

T_TE HAD a two hour wait before the
start of the sixth race, so he went
down to the barber shop on the fifth
floor of the building. Not for a shave
or a haircut, but because the shop had
a radio over which the race results
were received.

Time passed swiftly. Then came the
sixth race, a wide-open affair with eight
horses running. Lacey sat, his ear al-
most to the radio, and waited with
bated breath for the running of the race.

Pegasus didn’t even get a call!

Some broken down hay-bag, Bor-
rowed Time by name, took the race.
He was such a long shot that only
those people who close their eyes and
stick a pin through the entry list could
have picked him to win.

Joe Lacey, a little sadder but no
wiser, went back to his office.

“Won’t I ever learn?” he groaned
softly, as he sat down at his desk again.

The door was flung open and Tommy
burst into the room. The muscle-
man’s face held but one emotion —
awe.

“Gee, boss, you sure pick ’em,” He
chortled, as he took a thin bundle of
bills from his trouser pocket. He
threw the bills on the desk, and while
Lacey counted them, he continued:

“And was Harry sore. The only guy
to pick that goat was you and you had

half a C on him. Nice going, boss.”
Lacey had counted the bills while
Tommy was rhapsodising on Joe’s luck.
There were fifteen hundred-dollar bills
there. Borrowed Time had paid the
limit. Thirty to one.

But he had played Pegasus!
Something made Joe Lacey pick up
the phone and call Harry Moore.

It was evident from Harry’s voice
that he didn’t particularly care for any
part of Lacey. After they had ex-
changed the usual amenities of a tele-
phone call and Harry had remarked
on Joe’s luck, Joe said:

“Say, Harry. About that bet of

mine: I thought I wrote ”

• Harry didn’t give him a chance to
finish. He said sharply:

“Now listen, Joe. I got your note
right here in front of me. Fifty bucks
on Borrowed Time. So don’t start tell-
ing me it was more.”

“Are you sure, Harry?” Joe de-
manded.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, come
on over and look,” Harry said.

“Yeah. I think I’ll do that, Harry,”
Joe said, and hung up.

ARRY had the note on his desk,
when Joe walked in. He was right
too. The name of the horse was Bor-
rowed Time. Something was wrong
somewhere. But whatever it was, Joe
Lacey was fifteen hundred dollars the
richer for it.

The incident was still puzzling Joe
when he walked into -the restaurant
where he was to meet Slim Masconi.

Slim was sitting in a small booth,
near the door. His short, squat body
took up almost all of the seat on his
side of the table. His sullen, vicious
eyes took in Lacey with a look of con-
tempt.

“D’ja bring the dough?” were his
first words to Lacey after Joe sat down-

THE TRUTHFUL PENCIL

113

across, from him.

“I've got it, Slim.”

“Well, drop it. It won’t fly over to
me.”

Lacey tossed him ten of the one
hundred dollar bills.

Slim didn’t bother to count the bills.
His face still mirrored his contempt
as he said:

“Yuh know, Joe, you’re a pretty
smart guy. You’ve always been that.
Except for one time.”

Lacey, his face" stolid, said:

“And you’re never going to let me
forget that one time, are you, Slim?”
There was a world of menace in
Slim’s smile as he replied:

“Don’t ask silly questions. The cops
in Cleveland would give their eye teeth
to get hold of that goon supply con-
tract you signed with our union. Slim
smartened you up, didn’t he? You
don’t sign nothing any more. You just
supply the goons both ways. To the
unions for what they need, and to the
storekeeper for his protection. And
Joe Lacey collects from everybody. I’m
glad that I’m only a silent partner.”

He laughed in Lacey’s face when he
finished his talk and got up, to go.
Joe could hear him laughing even after
Slim left the restaurant.

“Someday I’m going to kill you,
Slim,” he promised silently as he wear-
ily got to his feet.

WAS sitting in his office, several
days later, when Harry Moore
called him up.

“How’s about giving me a chance to
get even?” Harry wanted to know.
“Why, what’s up?” Joe asked..
Harry said:’

“The big fight’s tomorrow: Morgan
and Thomas. Odds are even and you
can pick your man. I’ll take any bet
up to a thousand.”

“O.K., Harry,” Joe promised, “I’ll

see who I like and send one of my boys
over with the dough.”

The half-pencil which Lacey had
used several days before still lay on
the desk. Lacey opened his newspaper
to the sport pages to see what the dope
was on the coming fight. He noticed
that the Randolph Street bookmakers
held the fight an even bet. And from
the fighters’ previous records it looked
like an even match. He decided to
play a hunch. And picked Thomas.

He wrote another note to Harry;
and, using the half-pencil again, wrote:
Harry:

Enclosed is jive hundred on
Thomas. Playing a hunch. May-
be this time you’ll get lucky.

Joe Lacey.

The fight was scheduled for that very
night and Joe decided to' take it in.
The Standing Room Only crowd was a
testimonial to the popularity of the
fighters. Joe saw, from his seat in the
tenth row, that the two men were phys-
ically well matched. They were light-
heavyweights; and Thomas, the man
he had picked, was the taller of the
two. And as the bell clanged for the
opening of the fight, he proved to be the
more scientific, also.

He had a beautiful left hand, which
he used to keep Morgan off balance.
For three rounds the fight was even.
Then Thomas began to use his left
as an offensive weapon. Morgan
couldn’t keep his face away from that
slashing, stinging left hand. By the
end of the eighth round, it was a fore-
gone conclusion. For early in that
round, Morgan, breaking all the rules
of boxing technique, led with his right.
Thomas had promptly given him the
proper penalty. He had slid in under the
pawing right hand and shot a straight
left to Morgan’s chin. Then, while
Morgan was off balance, Thomas
hooked his left to Morgan’s jaw and

114

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

crossed over with a haymaking right.

Morgan went down. And the crowd
got up! Thomas’ right had Morgan’s
number on it. But — Morgan got up.
And went right down again. The rest
of the round was devoted to Thomas’
efforts to put Morgan away.

But Morgan managed to stick.

In the ninth round, Morgan got on
his bike and stayed away from Thomas.
But not in the tenth. That was the
final round. Thomas was all set for the
kill. He caught, up with Morgan early
in the round and from then on until
the end it was a repetition of the
eighth: The end came suddenly and

dramatically. Morgan had gone down
for the third time and Thomas was
hopping up and down behind the ref-
eree, waiting to see if Morgan would
come up. Morgan did, after taking an
eight count; but just as he reached his
feet, one foot slipped in a little of the
blood which he had shed from the shel-
lacking Thomas had dealt.

And just as he slipped, ThomasMet
go with the hardest punch of the night,
a right hand, intended for Morgan’s
chin. Everyone in the stadium heard
the explosive sound of bones breaking
when that fist, backed by one hundred
and seventy five pounds, caught Mor-
gan on his — skull.

Morgan, too, heard that sound. And
although he had absorbed a terrific
amount of punishment, he knew that
this was the only chance he had to win.
Thomas, his face pale with pain, was
backing up slightly when Morgan
feinted first with a left, then with a
right. Then he threw the left again
. and the fight was over. They,
could have counted a hundred over
Thomas’ prostrate body.

HpWO very bewildered men met at one
of the exit gates of the stadium.
Of the two, Joe Lacey was the more

bewildered. For Harry Moore had,
after they stepped into a cab, handed
Joe one thousand dollars.

Joe sat there staring at the money
in wondering silence while Harry said:

“Man, I wish I had your luck! Only
a miracle saved Morgan; but do mir-
acles happen for me? No. -Not when
Joe Lacey gives me a bet.”

“But Harry — ” Joe started to pro-
test.

“I know, Joe,” Harry broke in, “you
didn’t know what was going to hap-
pen and neither did anyone else. But
Thomas won and so did you. And
that’s what I pay off on, the winner.
Can I drop- you anywhere, Joe?” he
asked as Lacey maintained his silence.

“If you don’t mind, Harry, drop me
off at the office,” Joe said

Joe Lacey turned on the desk light
and sat down. The stub of a pencil
was still Tying there where' he had
dropped it after writing the note. He
picked it up and began to examine it.
There was nothing mysterious about
it. Just a plain pencil with an or-
dinary rubber eraser at one end, and
a piece of slate at the other.

Joe put the pencil down with a feel-
ing of reverence. The mystery was no
longer a mystery, yet, paradoxically,
was now a greater mystery than before.

Joe knew now that the pencil was
the cause of his sudden good luck. F or
there wasn’t the slightest doubt in his
mind that the pencil was possessed of
some mysterious power which made its
writing change to bring good fortune
to him.

He had to make one final- test, how-
ever. Again he picked a horse, one
Bolivar by name, and wrote it down
on the memo pad. He put the piece
of paper into the blank envelope again.
Then he left his office for his bachelor
apartment on the near North Side. He

THE TRUTHFUL PENCIL

115

placed the envelope on his dresser, un-
dressed and went to sleep.

When he got up in the morning, the
first act of his awakening was to ex-
amine the note in the envelope. He
was unconscious of his shaking hands.
Or the trembling of his body. His eyes
saw only the name that was written
there. And the name wasn’t Bo.livar;
it was ' Go Lightly, a horse with only
a fair reputation — but only in the mud.
On a dry track he ran an invariable
last.

Joe rushed to the window. The sky
was cloudless and the sun was already
hot on his face. Joe groaned aloud.
The note said Go Lightly. But here
it was, clear and hot; and Go Lightly
was running at Lincoln Fields in the
first race. Joe made up his mind, but
fast. The note said Go Lightly, and
that was the horse he was going to
play. By noon he had sent off another
fifty to Harry Moore with instructions
on what horse to put it, and an hour
later he was in the barber shop waiting
for the first race to start. The track
announcer usually came on five minutes
before post time but today he was late.
When he did come on, it was to make
an unusual announcement. The track’s
water main had burst and the opening
race would be delayed five minutes
until the water was drained off.

“This is unbelievable!” Joe said to
himself. “The only kind of a track
that goat can run on is a muddy one.
So on a hot, clear day, Lincoln Fields
has a muddy track!”

Go Lightly won by three lengths.

In the next two weeks Joe Lacey
made a half million dollars. And gave
three quarters of it to Slim Masconi.

It was only natural for Masconi to
hear of Joe’s amazing luck. For he
moved in the same circles. But where
Joe, due to the pencil,' couldn’t make a
mistake, Masconi had no such luck.

Whatever money he took from Joe was
given right back to the tracks, bookies
and gambling joints of the city. But
he didn’t care. Not as long as Joe
remained lucky.

In the meantime, Joe was playing his
luck all the way. He had given up his
labor goon agency and devoted all his
time to playing the horses and stock
market. He still kept his office, how-
ever. All he had to do was choose a
stock he wanted to put money on; write
down. the name of it at night and in the
morning the note read whether it would
advance or fall. What was more won-
derful, the note would also tell how
many points it would rise or fall. Joe
Lacey couldn’t lose, no sirl If only
Slim Masconi were out of the picture.

J OE was at his desk again, one morn-
ing, when he noticed that the pencil
was just a stub now;

“I never thought of that,” he told
himself as he looked at the pencil. “But
it couldn’t go on forever. The lead
had to go sometime. Now if Benny
only has another pencil like this, I’D
still be riding high.”

The thought of Benny brought some-
thing else to mind. Perhaps it wasn’t
the pencil which was lucky- Perhaps it
was Benny who had something to do
with it. He’d have to get in touch with
Benny’again, for since that day he had
chased him out of the office, Benny
never showed up again.

But just now the pencil had to per-
form a last trick. Joe Lacey had been
. thinking a lot of Slim Masconi the last
few days and his thinking had not been
in vain. He had evolved a little plan,
which would eliminate Slim and get
Slim to give up that incriminating con-
tract.

He reached for the phone and dialed
a number.

“Hello,” Joe said, when he heard

116

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

someone answer the ring, “is this the
Ace High Messenger Service?”

On being assured that it was, Joe
said:

“How many messenger boys do. you
have there? Twenty? Is that all?
All right; send them all up here.”

He gave his name and office address,
and leaned" bads, comfortably, awaited
their coming. In ten minutes there was
a knock on the door and twenty young
boys came in.

“All right now, here is what I want
you kids to do,” Joe explained to them.
“Go to every cigar store in -the Loop
and bring me a half dozen baseball
pool tickets from each store. There are
twenty of you, so you can do it in about
half an hour. Each of you will get a fin
when you’re through, plus the agency
cost. O.K. now, scram.”

In half an hour Joe had three hun-
dred and twenty, pool tickets on his
desk; He gave each of the messengers
a five dollar bill and told them to re-
turn in an hour.

When they left he began to mark the
names of eight winning teams on each
ticket. The odds on getting all eight
teams were hundred to one. Joe was
going to put a dollar on each ticket.
It looked as though Joe was going to
win three hundred and twenty thousand
dollars. But when he wrote the name
of the bettor, it wasn’t Joe Lacey’s.
It was Slim Masconi.

When he was through he was smil-
ing broadly. There was nothing pleas-
ant about the smile, however. He sat
back and thought of what was going
to happen.

“Now this is going to be good. Ace
Gordon’s syndicate runs baseball pools
in this town. And Slim — ” Joe laughed
aloud at the thought — “used to work
with Ace in Cleveland. So Slim pulled
a fast one on Ace and Ace swore he’d
get even. Late this afternoon Ace is

going to discover that someone by the
name of Slim Masconi has the top win-
ning combinations on three hundred
and twenty one-dollar tickets and
stands to take the syndicate for three
hundred and twenty G’s. Ace won’t
like that! But when he reads the little
note I’m going to send him, the only
one who won’t like it will.be Slim Mas-
coni! ’’

The messengers returned and Joe dis-
tributed the tickets to them with a dol-
lar bill for each ticket. Then calling
one of them to the side he said:

“When you’re through doing that,
son, I want you to go down to Clark
and Van Buren. On the corner you’ll
find an old mooch called Benny the
Pencil. If he isn’t there, ask the traffic
cop where he is. He’ll tell you. Well,
when you find him, bring him back
with you.”

r jpHE messengers left again and Joe
sat down to await Benny’s arrival.
Suddenly he was no longer relaxed and
comfortable. Things were coining to
a climax for him and he couldn’t sit
still. He paced about the office as
though it were a barred cage. He had
to wait a full hour before the messenger
returned with Benny.

“Well, Benny,” Joe greeted him with
a broad smile, “where you been? I’ve
been running short on pencils. Thought
you might have get lost.”

“Who — me?” Benny asked suspi-
ciously. “Naw. Clark and Van Bu-
ren’s my spot. I don’t move much.”

“Say, Benny.” Joe became serious.
“You got any more pencils like this
one?”

He showed him the stub. Benny
looked at it, then looked up at Joe and
said:

“Yeah, I think so. But why like
this?”

“Well, Benny,” Joe said, smiling

THE TRUTHFUL PENCIL

117

anew, “that pencil brought me luck
and I'd like to get another just like
it.”

“That pencil didn't bring you luck,
Joe. It was me. Remember the day
I was here and you was on the phone.
Well, I saw that things was tough when
you only dropped a nickel, so I did
something I never did before. I wished
good luck on you Joe. I swear it.”

It was the longest spiel of Benny’s
career — and the best.

“So that was it, Benny? You wished
me luck?” Joe said. “Well, here's ten
bucks for another of those lucky pen-
cils and lucky wishes. How do you like
that?”

Benny held the ten dollar bill rever-
ently. He hadn’t thought his spiel would
be worth that much. But the evidence
was in his hand.

“Thanks, Joe,” he said at last. “An’
I hope the pencil writes nothin' but
good for yuh.”

Joe had asked two of the messenger
boys to remain. When Benny left, Joe
sat down at his desk to compose a let-
ter, a very important letter. The pen-
cil stub was so small, now, that he was
barely able to write with it. In fact,
all he could get out of it was the head-
ing to the letter: Ace.

He threw the stub away in disgust
and after sharpening the pencil Benny
had recently given him, started the
body of the letter: “The guy who

bet -” Then the pencil point broke.

He sharpened it anew and began again.
And again the point broke. After sharp-
ening it for the sixth time, Joe hurled
the pencil from him in disgust.

Now what to do? He had no other
pencil and he could not use pen and
ink because the pencil had become too
completely associated in his mind with
the luck which had come to him. His
eyes roamed over the desk top and lit
upon the other half of the first pencil

Benny had given him. It had lain there
all this time. He lost very little time
in putting a point on it. And when he
began the body of the letter, there was
no breaking point this time. The let-
ter read thus:

Ace:

The guy who bet all those win-
ning combinations, today, will be
talking to a pencil-selling • bum at
Clark and Van Buren at six o’clock
this evening. It’d be kind of tough
if he couldn’t collect that three
hundred and twenty grand; but
it’d be tougher if you had to pay
it out. Understand?

A Friend

J OE looked at the letter, satisfaction
bright in his eyes. As far as he
was concerned the letter was a master-
piece of skulduggery. He sealed it,
called in one of the messengers and gave
him the syndicate's address, saying:
“Now get this: The only guy you’re
to give this to is Ace Gordon himself.
Hand it to him and scram. There
won’t be any answer and I don’t want
him to ask you any questions. Get
it?”

The boy nodded his head, and left;
Then Joe started another letter. This
one read:

Slim:

I have to leave town for a jew
ddys. But if you’ll be at Clark
and Van Buren tonight at six
o’clock, I’ll leave jive grand with
that bum, on the' corner, who ped-
dles those pencils. Be there at. six
sharp because that’s the only lime
you can find him there. Sorry 1
couldn’t make it, but will see you in
a few days. The money will be in
an envelope.

Joe

This letter he gave to the other mes-

118

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

senger, after telling him Slim’s address.

“And if he isn’t in, leave it with the
desk clerk. He’ll be back in time.”

It was now about three o’clock in the
afternoon. Joe knew where Benny was
usually to be found. He was sorry
that he hadn’t thought of asking Benny
to stay when the messenger brought
him. But it didn’t matter very much
as long as Benny was on the corner at
six o’clock.

Joe knew where to look. In front
of Joe’s Mansion. He -took Benny
aside and said, as he gave him ten dol-
lars:

“Here’s a sawbuck for you, Benny.
It’ll be the easiest money you ever
made in your life. All you have to do
is this: At six o’clock tonight I want
you to be on the corner of Clark and
Van Buren with your tin cup full of
pencils. Stand near the shoe store. At
six o’clock, some guy is going to walk
lip to you and ask for an envelope.
Stall him for a few minutes and that’s
all you’ll have to do. Got it, Benny?”

Benny nodded his head solemnly. He
got it.

Joe took the third envelope he had
prepared in his office and gave it to
Benny. After Benny left, Joe sat in
the Manhattan Tea Room for a while.
Then, as the time passed too slowly
that way, he decided to take in a news-
reel for an hour. But even there his
mind kept picturing the inevitable con-
sequences his letters would bring.

He came back to the Manhattan Tea
Room. It was just a few minutes before
five o’clock. He looked toward the
corner where Benny, at this hour, was
usually to be seen. But the rush hour
had just begun and he could not see
Benny in the crush of people.

“This is a hell of a time for that
mooch to take a powder,” Joe thought
angrily.

He pushed through the doors of the

Manhattan Tea Room and walked to
the corner. Benny was there. He
walked up to him and said:

“Geez, I thought you took a powder.”
“Who, me? After you give me a saw-
buck, Joe?” Benny asked in surprise.
“Why, I’d stay here till tomorrow for
that ten,” he concluded.

It was just five o’clock.

A Ford sedan drove by, passed Fin-
negan at his post and slowly drew
abreast of Benny and Joe. A hand,
holding a gun, - was suddenly thrust
through one of its open windows.

Benny, who happened to be facing
the car saw the gun. Joe looked at
Benny and caught the look of terror
that came on his face. Some sixth sense
told him what was about to happen —
but told him too late. Even before he
was able to turn to run, the gun sang
a song of death for him. He fell, a blue-
edged hole in his head, at Benny’s feet.

But another person -saw the hand
with its lethal weapon: Finnegan. His
answering shot came too late to save
Joe; but a short wiry man fell out of
the car.. The driver didn’t wait for
any more shooting. He took it on high.
Not that the fallen gunman needed
anything. He was as dead as Joe.

Finnegan called the meat-wagon;
then went over to the dead killer. He
pawed through his pockets to see what
he could find in the way of identifica-
tion. Among the items brought to light,
was a strange letter. It read:

Ace:

The guy who bet all those win-
ning combinations, today , will be
talking to a pencil-selling bum at
Clark and Van Buren at five
o’clock this evening. It’d be
kind of tough if he couldn’t collect
that three hundred and twenty
grand; but it’d be tougher if you
had to pay it out. Understand?

A Friend

THE TRUTHFUL PENCIL

119

Finnegan couldn’t make head or tails
of it but he knew the homicide men
would take care of that.

It was several hours later that Benny
realized no one had come to ask for
the envelope Joe had given him to
deliver.

“Well, it won’t make no never mind

now,” he said philosophically. He
opened the envelope and read the note
it contained. The note read:

Slim:

Sorry it had to happen this way.
But then luck has to change jor all
of us, doesn’t it? Only you won’t
be here to see it change .

★

I T WAS in the great Libyan desert that the
British started to push Rommel back to his
eventual defeat and give Hitler one of his
severest headaches of the war.

But in the desert of Southern Nevada, another
battle has been fought and won that will add its
share to the downfall of Germanism.

This battle was. a battle of production and the
final victory came when the largest magnesium
plant in the world went into production.

This huge plant owned by Basic Magnesium,
Inc., is the result of four things: the energy pro-
duced by Boulder Dam located fifteen miles away,
the water stored up by the dam, the huge deposits
of magnesium ore, and American ingenuity and
will to win the war at all costs.

It isn’t easy to build a plant in the middle of a
desert where only a short time ago there was no
water, no power, and very few people. And once
the plant is built, you can’t run it without work-
ers who will come only if you can provide them
with the necessities and a few of the luxuries of
life. And so the building of a plant that cost over
$100,000,000 and into which was poured 50,000
tons of structural steel so vital to our war effort
was only the first step.

The 'more important step was the erection of
1000 demountable homes to form a model village
for the workers with families. Another camp was
erected to provide homes for the 6,000 single men
working at the plant. In addition, trailer camps
and motor courts soon sprang up and those who
so desired could live in Las Vegas which was only
15 miles away and commute each day.

To see that the children got their reading, writ-
ing, and ’rithmetic, a school from kindergarten
• through high school was built. A large, modern
hospital takes care of the sick and a large restau-
rant puts out 25,000 meals a day.

But more' than workers had to be brought into
the plant. Huge power lines were erected over the
mountains to carry electricity from Boulder Dam.
An enormous pipe line was built to carry water
from Lake Meade into the two water reservoirs
built to store it. They even built a railroad as
well as a road to bring in supplies and take out
the magnesium. All of thi3 adds up to the stagger-
ing fact that when this one plant hits its peak, it

alone will produce thirty times as much magnesium
as was produced by the whole world just seven
short years ago. TTiis plant, while the largest, is
only one of many plants in operation.

Magnesium is a silvery white metal that pos-
sesses a bigh lustre. It is both malleable and
ductile and has a high melting and boiling point.
The first record of magnesium was, in 1695 when
N. Grew isolated magnesium sulphate now known
as “epsom salts." Davy, the great British chemist,
announced in 1808 that magnesia was the oxide of
a' metal, but he was unable to isolate it. It was
not until the end of 'the 19th century that ifiag-
nesium was obtained in its pure form.

It is the eighth most abundant element, but so
little of it was obtained in a free state that few of
its potentialities were discovered.

But today Basic Magnesium, Inc., has changed
the entire picture. Today we are using magnesium
to produce tracer bullets, flares and incendiary
bombs. Because it is so light, magnesium is used
to produce alloys from which are made airplanes,
gas tanks, engines, and many other items.

The process used to produce magnesium is not
very complicated. The magnesium oxide is mined
in the Nevada desert valley and carried to the
plant- Here it is ground, mixed with coal, salt
and some other substances and shaped into small
balls. These balls then go into kilns where all
water is removed. Then they are melted in a large
round furnace and pure chlorine gas is forced into
the molten mass. By this step the magnesium ox-
ide is changed into magnesium chloride, which is
run off into electrolytic cells. By means of an
electrical current, the pure magnesium is separated
from the chlorine.

To show that money is no object, when they
found that copper was not available to carry the
current through the magnesium chloride, the en-
gineers decided to use silver. The silver used cost
over $18,000,000 but it is helping to save Ameri-
can lives and well worth it. Moreover, the silver
is not used up and once copper is no longer needed
to win the war, it will be used to replace the silver.
Even after the war, the demand for magnesium
will be great and the output of Basic Magnesium,
Inc., will be geared to peacetime economy instead
of turning out wartime tools.

R ichard stanton, jr., wrig-
gled uncomfortably on the daven-
- port, trying to turn the trouble-
some newspaper until he could study
the picture section upside down as it
should be. The folds would not co-
operate, resulting in a wrinkled mess
that could be seen well from no angle.
Finally he lost his patience. 'His nose
wrinkled distastefully.

“Darn old paper ! You be good or
I’ll spit all over you.”

The threat resulted in immediate re-
percussions. from his mother.

“Richard!" Madge Stanton, her face
hidden behind a magazine, tried hard
not to smile. “How many times have I
told you -?”

Richard Stanton, Jr. wadded the en-
’ tire sports-section into a large ball, let
it fall to the o irpet, and slid carefully
to the floor.

“I is gonna go hunt dwagons. They
is in my bedwoom.”

At the opposite end ' of the living
room, Bill Stanton, Sr., emerged mo 1
men tar ily from behind the front page,
stared over his glasses, and smiled at
his wife. Stanton had that comfort-
able, middle-aged look that comes with
slightly gray hair and long hours
of work in an office. He sometimes

wished he could hunt “dwagons” with
his son. The imagination of a four-
year-old was as refreshing as it was
startling.

This time, however, drastic measures
were called for. He scowled, carefully
tightening his facial muscles until every
pretense of a smile was gone.

“Richard ! Come here ! ”

Dickie Stanton was already out of the
room, on his way to slay a d wagon. He
returned slowly, one hand held tightly
over the sea.t of his pants. He went
to his father with head hanging.

“Yes, Daddy.” The greeting was as
sweet as an angel’s. Dickie knew the
power of the swinging arm. He had no
intention of inviting an onslaught.
Mommy didn’t hurt much; but Daddy
kept hitting the same place until it
turned red. “Did I do somethin’?”
Stanton waited until his son was close,
reached out and gripped small shoulders
with both hands.

“How many times have we told you
not to use nasty words, young man?”

“You mean dwagons? Is they nasty,
Daddy?”

Dickie looked up with round, blue
eyes, and an expression of innocence
that had been rehearsed through four
hard years of living.

122 FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“I mean, what you said about that
newspaper,” Stanton said sternly. “If
I hear you use the word ‘spit’ again,
I’ll ”

Dickie tried to draw away, anxious
to be on with a dwagon hunt.

“You say spit, Daddy,” he protested.
That was always a good way out. “Only
a little while ago you say ‘spit’ in
Hitler’s face.”

Richard Stanton turned a trifle red.
He released Dickie.

“Grownups can say lots of things
children shouldn’t,” he explained hur-
riedly. “When you grow up ”

“When I grow up, can I say spi ?”

A hurried hand clamped over his
mouth. Dickie struggled for a minute,
forgot the word he was trying to say,
and relaxed. The hand was withdrawn.

“Go hunt dragons,” his father com-
manded shortly; and as his offspring
hurriedly followed these instructions,
he said in an embarrassed voice:

“Madge, sometimes I don’t know
what we’ll do with that brat.”

From the other room Dickie started
to shout at the top of his high, uncon-
trolled voice.

“I is a bwat. I is a bwat.”

“Shut up,” Stanton howled. “By the

great God, I’ll ”

“Stop that,” Madge / Stanton said
sharply. “That’s exactly how he learns
all those words.”

Silence settled uncomfortably over
the room for several minutes. From
the bedroom came occasional sounds,
like “Giddap, horsey,” and “Take
that, you nasty old dwagon.”

Richard Stanton continued to read
the paper peacefully. The offspring was
forgotten.

JN THE safety of his own room,
Dickie had a swell dwagon hunt. He
managed to corner a number of the fire-
spitting, green-scaled monsters. They

tried to hide under his bed, and he
went after them with a tinker-toy that
he had cunningly “shaped into a sword.
The sword had keen, razor-like edges,
and Dickie proceeded to make steaks
out of the dwagons.

After they were, all slaughtered, no
other sport presented itself. Dickie sat
quietly under the bed. He knew it was
getting very late, and if he wasn’t quiet,
Mommy would put him to bed.

Dickie hated bed. He hated it with
every little fierce bone in his body.
Bed wasn’t any fun at all. When he
grew up beds were going to be thrown
away. People would “stay up” all the
time. There were going to be thou-
sands of dwagons and he’d spend all
his time hunting them.

Dickie wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t
let the dwagons eat Daddy before
he killed them. Daddy was growing
troublesome. It was Daddy who said
“spit on Hitler,” but he wouldn’t let
Dickie say spit. He said “damn” and
“shut up” and any number of swell
words; but Dickie wasn’t supposed to
say any of them.

Now, take spitting in Hitler’s face,
for example. Dickie didn’t know much
about Hitler. He knew, that Hitler
was the leader of all the Germans.
Dickie hated Germans because all the
older boys went around shooting at
them with wooden guns.

Dickie had a gun too, but he didn’t
dare shoot anything tonight. That
would make a lot of noise and remind
Mommy that he wasn’t in bed yet.

It wotdd be kinda fun, he thought, to
spit in Hitler’s face. Dickie remem-
bered just what made Daddy say it.
Daddy had been reading the paper, and
he opened a page and said:

“Every time I look at this ugly mug,
I want to spit on it.”

Mom said:

“Shhhh ! ”

HITLER’S RIGHT EYE

123

It was all very secret, and Dickie
wasn’t supposed to hear it. Daddy
held the page for Mommy to see, and
Mommy said:

“Hitler again. There should be a law
against even printing his picture ”

Daddy sighed.

“Keeps us aware that he’s still alive,”
he said. “I’ll be glad when someone
puts a bullet through his head.”

Dickie wondered if he could shoot a
real gun. That would be more fun than
spitting. ,

He decided to get the picture of
Hitler and spit on it/ just to find out
what would happen. Probably Mommy
would catch him, and he’d have to kick
and squeal, and end up by going to
bed.

It was worth a try. Dickie adopted
commando tactics, crept carefully
around the corner into the hall, and
crawled slowly toward the front room.
When a paper rustled suddenly, Dicky
froze, not moving a muscle until
Daddy’s face was deep in the paper
again. Then he wriggled slowly ahead.

He reached the place behind Daddy’3
chair where the discarded sheet of
newspaper had been tossed. With it
held firmly in his hand he backed away
and safely reached his bedroom.

He studied Hitler’s picture for a long
time. If he had been able to read all
the words under it, he would have
known that: “Hitler, his cause lost, has
retreated into the hills, a hunted man.
English and American sharp-shooters
have made more or less of a game of
finding him. Every nation had placed
a price on this man’s head. Who will
be the first to place a bullet through his
skull?”

But Dickie couldn’t read it, and he
wasn’t interested anyhow. He placed
the picture on the floor and started to
roll saliva on his tongue. He had a
nice big blob of it ready to let go.

“Dickie?” His mother’s voice was
sharp, questioning. “Heavens, I com-
pletely forgot to put that boy to bed.”

Dickie grew tense. He heard her
footsteps in the hall. His mouth was
full of saliva now. He aimed at Hitler’s
right eye and let go. The shot was ex-
cellent. The hit was direct.

Dickie rolled over contentedly on his
back and waited as his mother’s foot-
steps approached.

THAT identical moment, Adolph
Hitler crouched in the water-soaked
brush, high in the mountains near his
former retreat. Hitler was facing a last
opportunity for escape.

He was on his knees, a dejected
animal-like figure, eyes shining like, a
cornered rodent, drenched to the skin.
His weapon, a powerful deer rifle pre-
sented to him years before by the
hunter, Goering, lay ready across his
knees.

A sound came from below him In the
small gulley. Hitler’s body tensed.
The rifle came up. Someone was there,
stalking him, ready to kill. He had
been stalked thus for days, never alone,
never safe.

He waited. The movement came
again, this time bringing a man into
sight from beyond the edge of the gul-
ley. Hitler’s rifle was steady. The
man below carried a telescopic rifle. He
was brown and gaunt from days of
travel in the forest.

Hitler’s rifle was aimed, but the rain
troubled him. It ran down his face and
dripped on his legs. He sighted care-
fully, his finger closing about the trig-
ger. The figure in the gulley was out-
lined perfectly.

(, Gott un Himntel /”

His arm had touched a wet branch
and a blob of water fell from it, hitting
Adolph Hitler squarely in the right eye.
Startled, his nerves worn to a thin edge,

124

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

he cried aloud with surprise and anger.

The man in the gulley dropped
quickly, turned, sighted into the brush
and fired three shots in quick succes-
sion.

There was no movement — no sound
after that. The paperhanger was a
scrawny, half-starved corpse when they

found him the following morning.

jTjICKIE STANTON, JR., the little
boy who had spit in Hitler’s eye,
slept the sleep of the avenged. He
dreamed that Hitler was going to shoot
a “dwagon,” but he, Dickie, spit in
Hitler’s eye and spoiled his aim.

VIGNETTES OF FAMOUS SCIENTISTS

By ALEXANDER BLADE =■-— ■ — -^ ==

Qalen

This amazing physician of ancient Greece, was two thousand
years ahead of his time. Modern surgery owes much to him.

G ALEN, the Greek physician, was born in
130 A.D., in Perganum, the capital of
Mysia, an ancient, province in the north-
western corner of Asia Minor, a city renowned for
its magnificent library, the creation of the Attalid
Kings. He is sometimes wrongly spoken of as
Claudius Galen, but. the cognomen Claudius has no
authenticity and is a result of a misunderstanding
on the part of Renaissance scholars.

From his earliest years Galen was familiar with
the Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic and Epicurean
schools of thought. He began the study of medi-
cine in 146, and two years later went to Smyrna
to attend the lectures of Pelops, a celebrated physi-
cian. In search of knowledge he roamed through
Greece, Cilicia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Crete, Cyprus
and finally visited the famous medical school at
Alexandria.

Settling at Rome in 164, Galen became ac-
quainted with some of the highest officers' of the
state, among them the consul Boethus, Severus the
future emperor, and the uncle' of Lucius. Many
of these eminent people attended his lectures and
demonstrations. Galen used an unsparing pen
against medical sects, the methodists, dogmatists,
pneumatists and empirics, then flourishing in
Rome, and thus provoked the hostility of his pro-
fessional brethren. He belonged to no particular
school, though in philosophy he favoured Aristo-
telianism.

When he was thirty -eight years old, he returned
to Mysia, but he had hardly settled down to the
practice of his profession when he was recalled by
the emperor Marcus Aurelius fgr service in the
Germaine Wars. But on arrival at the camp of
the army he found that a pestilence had broken
out there, and that the emperor had started on
the return journey to Rome where he followed

them. Little is known of the rest of 'his life. Ap-
parently he was in Rome during the fire of 191,
when many of his works were burned, and he was
still lecturing in the reign of Pertinax. It is gen-
erally believed that he died in Sicily in A.D. 200.

Galen was a student and a voluminous writer.
He was the author of some 500 treatises written
in clear Attic Greek. There are still in existence
83 documents of his that are known to be genuine,
besides more than 400- others, the authenticity of
which is questionable,, but which are preserved for
what they may be worth in the collection of his
writings. Very few of them have any value be-
yond that of ancient curiosities, for in his time,
and for centuries after it, the medical art was in
no sense a science. But Galen was also an anat-
omist of unusual ability and brilliancy for his day,
and made one memorable discovery for which he
has won immortal credit. This was, that the brain
was the organ of thought.

Up to his time various opinions had been held
as to the organ in the human body which was
the seat of the mind. For instance, the word
brain, or any word that might be thought to refer
to that organ, is not to be found in the Bible or
in any ancient literature. Among the Babylonians
the liver was regarded as the thought center. With
the Hellenes the heart was considered the home of
the soul,. and the kidneys that of the mind, while
sentiment and the emotions were supposed to re-
side in the bowels. “Bowels of compassion.” In
Plato’s time the brain, though well known as a
separate bodily organ, was regarded as an exten-
sion, in the shape of a gland, of the marrow of
the bones. And while he — for no reason that can
be deduced from his writings — called it the seat of
the soul, he exhibited no conception of it as the
seat of thought. Aristotle later ridiculed the Pla-

VIGNETTES OF FAMOUS SCIENTISTS

125

tonic view, which certainly was nonsense, and said
that the brain was simply a gland set at the top
of the body, for the purpose of keeping the blood
from acquiring too high a' temperature, in other
words, simply a cooling gland. It is true that one
Alcmaeon, a Greek of Italian birth, who lived in
the 6th century B.C., and who was recognized
locally as a physician of ability for his time, had
definitely taught that the brain was the seat of
thought. But his opinion carried no weight with
the philosophers, and was quickly ' forgotten. It
required a man of the experimental habits and
international renown of Galen, to overthrow the
childish speculation of his day on the subject. Ac-
cordingly, when, in about the year A.D. 160, he
announced his discovery in a monograph entitled
De Anatomlcis Administrationibus, and elaborated
it in a second one under the title of De Usa
Partium for ports Humatd , his conclusions were at
once accepted, and have never since been ques-
tioned. In fact, not until Harvey, in 1628, pub-
lished his work on the circulation of the blood, did
man begin to know much about the temple in
which his mind and personality made their dwell-
ing place.

Galen may be regarded as the founder of ex-
perimental physiology, and after Hippocrates, as
the most distinguished physician of antiquity. To
Hippocrates he acknowledges his deep obligations
in practical medicine, and he is equally frank
about his indebtedness to Alexandrian anatomists.

Galen’s anatomical investigations were unrivalled
in antiquity for their fullness and accuracy. He
was an indefatigable dissector, describing mainly
what he actually saw. He dissected apes and lower
animals, though much that is relevant to the hu-
man body is incorporated in his works. .As a
specimen of his accuracy it may be mentioned that
he recognised the lacteal vessels, and described the
ducts of the lingual and submaxillary glands,
though of their function he was unaware. Many
structures, by which the names of 16th and 17 th
century anatomists, eponymously linger, were ob-
served by Galen such as the aqueduct of Sylvius
and the foramen ovale known as le trou Botal.
The mode of dosure of the latter Galen describes
in language hardly since excelled.

Galen’s physiological investigations were revolu-
tionary. He knew of insensible perspiration, he
ligatured the recurrent laryngeal nerve, he per-
formed section of the spinal cord at various
levels and observed the resulting sensory and
motor disturbances and incontinence. He correctly
interpreted the effect of cutting above the origin
of the phrenic nerve. He described the heart with
its three layers of fibres, which he hesitated to call
muscle. The reasons for his reluctance are greatly
to his credit. Thus, firstly, he noted that the car-
diac substance presented characteristics different
from those of ordinary muscle, as, for instance, in
that its action was independent of volition, and,
secondly, he recorded that section of its nerve
supply was not followed by cessation of its activ-
ities. The valves of the heart are accurately de-

scribed by him, and It is probably that he knew
of the anastomosis of the vessels. One of hi3
greatest contributions was the demonstration that
the arteries contain blood, and not air bs the Alex-
andrian school had taught for over four hundred
years.

Apart from his medical work Galen occupies a
position of considerable interest in the history of
both religion and philosophy. He was a firm be-
liever in God as the supreme creator of the uni-
verse in all its parts. He had set himself to prove
that the bodily organs are in such perfect relation
to the functions to which they minister that it is
impossible to imagine any better arrangement.
Thus, following the Aristotelian principle that Na-
ture makes naught in vain, he develops the prob-
lem of final causes along definite lines. These lines
amount to determinism with God as determiner.
The peculiar feature of Galen’s doctrine, however,
is neither his determinism nor his monotheism,
both of which were familiar to the thinkers of the
day, but his extraordinary claim that God’s pur-
poses could be elicited in great detail from the ex-
amination of his works. This comes out most
strikingly, perhaps, in his famous description of
the hand, contained in his treatise On the Uses of
the Parts of the Body of Man.

In several places in his works Galen mentions
both Judaism and Christianity, though without
much respect. In the great anatomical work under
discussion he explains that in his belief God always
works by law, and that it is just for this reason
that natural law reveals him, and he adds that “in
this matter our view . differs from that of
Moses.” It seems very probable that he had read
some books of the Bible. His position can thus
be summed up as intermediate between Stoicism
and Christianity. On the one hand he accepted
the natural law of the Stoic philosophy, but re-
jected its astrological corollary. On the other hand
he accepted the divine guide and architect of the
universe which corresponded to the Christian
scheme, but rejected all idea of miracle.

Galen is held to have had a certain influence on
the development of logic. He was, however, sim-
ply purveying the ordinary Peripatetic doctrines
of his day. Nevertheless he is of some importance
as the carrier or transmitter of these doctrines by
reason of the avidity with which his medical works
were read during the middle ages. He is thus in
some sense responsible for both scholastic methods
and scholastic philosophy.

Galen’s monotheism no doubt contributed to his
popularity in the ages that followed him. How-
ever, nearly all writings were lost to western
Europe after the break-up of the Roman empire.
They were, however, translated into Arabic and
about the 11th century the Methodus Medendi,
and the Ars Parva or so-called Micrategni, were
recovered in .Latin versions from Arabic sources.
The lSth century saw the effective completion y of
the Galenic canon in Greek by humanist scholars.
Latin translations were' studied in the medical
schools until the dawn of the 19th century.

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126

Tf OUISE WILMOTT was walking mittees. Here was complete peace and
alone through the garden when tranquillity. Until this hour of arriv-
^ the strange meeting occurred, ing in this far-off lakeside country she
It was nearly midnight. The moon was had almost forgotten that such things
full, showering a soft, white light could be.

through the rows of graceful poplars. Suddenly her easy stride 1 came to a
The night was warm. There was no stop. She was startled by the move-
dew, and the acres of lawn stretched ment of a dark object among the shad-
away past arches of climbing roses and ows only a few yards to her right,
clumps of shrubbery. The object had been lying in a hori-

Louise was breathing in the fragrance zontal position and at first glimpse had
and thrilling to that free-spirited feeling reminded her of a fallen scarecrow,
of being far. away from everyone — But as it drew its knees up and bent
reporters and cameramen and Washing- forward to catch them with black-
ton officials and women’s uplift com- gloved hands, Louise knew the strange

127

128

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

apparition must be a man.

As the figure rose to his feet and
strode slowly toward her path, Louise
saw that his face was concealed by a
mask.

“Good evening,” he said. His voice
was deep, like an echo out of a well.

Louise caught her breath. The mask
he wore glittered with a row of bright
green points of light across the fore-
head, like real emeralds scintillant in
the moonlight. The man’s face was lost
under the loose sack of black silk. A
face that cannot be seen is a face to
be feared, Louise thought.. The eyes
were bright black beads within deep
shadows. They were exceedingly alert,
for a man who might have been sleeping
•under the stars, but Louise could not
tell if they were smiling.

She yielded to an impulse to change
her course. Abruptly she left the 'gravel
path and started off across the patch
of lawn.

The phantom of silk and jewels did
not choose to be ignored. He crossed
the gravel path with an unhurried
stride.

“Good evening, miss,’’ he repeated.
His footsteps swished through the grass,
coming closer. As she passed a row of
garden. sage his shadow crossed hers.

“Good evening,” he said for the third
time. “Aren’t you lost in this garden,
miss? You’re a half mile from the
\house. You might not be safe.”

She stopped and looked up at him.
He was quite - tali, and his broad
shoulders, his high head and his wide,
fan-shaped cap with the emerald band
gave him the aspect of towering above
her, a weird symbol of doom.

“Why are you following me?” Louise
asked, trying hard not to seem fright-
ened.

“D© let me show ybu, around. This
garden is quite large. You might get
lost.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Until you came along I was simply
lying on the grass' watching the skies,
thinking what a beautiful moon — what
a beautiful world ”

“It is beautiful,” Louise said, some-
what, breathlessly .

He nodded his head gently two or
three times, and she guessed he might
be smiling and saying to himself, “So
you are' going to see things my way I”
What he did say was simply, “Beauti-
ful!”

“Now please go back to your observa-
tion post,” Louise said. “You’re miss-
ing out on the moon and stars.”

“But you are so much more beauti-
ful. Do,you come here often?”

J^OUISE WILMOTT might have an-
swered that, although she had
never been here before, she had become
the owner of this property through an
inheritance.

Furthermore, she might have stated
that persons who could not explain their
presence here could be arrested for tres-
passing.

She fought down the impulse to give
angry orders, though she would have
been within her rights.

Instead, she said, “Do you have to
wear black? Do you have to blot out
my moonlight and roses. with a shroud
and a mask?”

The emerald-capped phantom gave a
low laugh.

“Your moonlight? Your roses?” -

“Very well, they are my roses.”

“Then you are the owner — the very
famous Miss Wilmott. I am honored.”
He gave a deep bow. The fan-shaped
cap stirred a breeze against her face.
The emerald band flashed. Then he
stood very tall and straight again, and
much too dignified.

“Since you insist upon talking with
me, wouldn’t it be courteous for you

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

129

to remove your mask?” Louise sug-
gested..

“That I cannot do,” said the dark
phantom. “But I must talk with you.
I have a request to make. It will be

to your advantage But come.

Here’s a place for us to sit.”

“A park bench, I suppose?”

“No, a marble table — a chess table,
if you please. I often engage myself
in games through the night. The chess-
men are jeweled. They catch the light
of the farthest star. There. Won’t
you sit down? You are quite an expert
at chess, I’ve heard.”

Louise asked herself how he knew
that. In fact, she suddenly asked her-
self a hundred questions.

Who was he? Had he known that
she, the nation’s famed “Miss Citizen”
was coming here tonight? Did he know
that she had longed for many years
to see this lonesome old lakeside estate
that her aunt had left to her? That
she had decided only a few days ago
to suspend the political career she had
followed in her three years since col-
lege, to while away a few lazy months
here in the country?

Less than an hour ago, Louise had
arrived here with her chauffeur. Her
secretary and companion, Darlene Don-
ovan, would come after the office de-
tails were cared for.

Upon arriving, Louise had been over-
whelmed by the beauty of the place —
the lazy slapping of waters against the
shore, the wide slope of lawn, the great
rambling old house, the massive lines of
its roofs and porches catching the white
light of the summer moon.

Brenda, the fat, good-humored,
crinkly-eyed old cook, had given Louise
a glad welcome and had led her straight
through the spacious hall, past the
oaken staircases, to farther doors with
the big colored squares of glass. There
Louise had glimpsed an expanse of gar-

den that stretched endlessly into the
moonlit mists.

“I’ll have to breathe in some of that
garden magic before I can believe it’s
real,” Louise had said.

“Don’t you want a bite to eat first?”
Brenda had suggested. “Don’t you
want to meet Mr. White, the scientist
that your aunt left in charge of things
here? He’s up in his room, asleep over
a book, most likely.”

Louise had hesitated. She had been
curious to know what this Mr. Theodore
White would be like.

“Is he young and handsome, Bren-
da?” Louise asked, smiling.

“He’s a spring chicken compared to
me. But I’m all of sixty-five, child.
I guess he’s anyway fifty. His hair is
just as white as his name, and so are
his chin whiskers.”

“I’ll go on to the garden,” Louise
had said. “You have to take magic
beauty like this when it comes. I’ll
see Mr. White later.”

“And all this mail — these letters from

scientists all over the world ”

“Later, Brenda.”

A ND now Louise Wilmott found her-
self looking across a moonlit mar-
ble chess-table into the masked eyes of
a tall young man — his voice, for all its
depths, was certainly young — and he
was talking in riddles.

What a curious mixture his costume
was — tattered old black silks and glit-
tering precious stones. There were
emeralds in his belt, rubies in his black
gloves. As he talked he gestured ex-
pressively with his broad hands. Rag-
ged strips of black silk fluttered from
his wrists. 'He was hardly a scare-
crow, Louise thought, but rather some
hitherto unknown ghost that had sprung
•from the blackest waters of a moonlit
lily pool. The conceit of a lazy bull-
frog was in his low, easy voice.

130

FANTASTIC. ADVENTURES

But presently his words struck Louise
dumb with amazement.

“Yes, I quite agree with you,” he
was saying. “There’s nothing so peace-
ful as a moonlit garden. Do you know
where to find a doctor?”

“A doctor?”

“One that can remove bullets,” said
the man with the emerald mask. “One
that can handle an emergency.”

“I know of one at a village a hundred
miles from here. We could get him yet
tonight. My chauffeur is here.”

“Tomorrow will be soon enough,”
said the young man calmly. “I can
depend on you?”

“Of course, if he’s needed. But such
things mustn’t wait. I’ll have the
chauffeur go at. once.”

The masked man arose slowly. “To-
morrow.”

Louise gasped. “But if someone has

been shot ”

“Please don’t excite yourself.”

“Who was it? When did it happen?”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” said the
man, passing his gloved fingers lightly
over his headband. “There’ll be sev-
eral bullets. You’d better invite the
doctor out for a week. Good evening.”
He bowed deeply and strode off into
the mists of the night.

CHAPTER 11
Crash!

| ^OUISE stood for a long time, com-
pletely puzzled over the strange
encounter. She might have believed
it only a fancy of her carefree mind,
but at her fingertips were the smooth,
cool surfaces of the marble: She could
not deny that the chess-table was there.

Neither could she deny that it had
pink and white squared and a dark bor-
der, sb'ft-tinted in the . night’s steamy
light. “Three colors of marble,” the

emerald-crested phantom had said,
“from three continents.”

Louise sat down at the table and
passed her fingers idly over the squares!
The surface was smooth as a single
sheet of glass. She wished for chess-
men simply for the pleasure of using
the table.

It would be fun, she thought, to play
chess by moonlight. Strange that the 1
man in the mask should have heard of
her weakness for this game. Was he
not very clever to suggest a pastime
so intriguing?

Very clever, and perhaps very
wicked. She wondered.

She watched the funny shadows from
her fingers, and tried to form the out-
lines of the players. She succeeded in
making two bishops and a knight, but
they refused to distribute themselves
to separate squares.

“I wonder where the chess-men are
kept,” she said aloud.

To her astonishment a drawer slid
open silently from beneath the table’s
surface.

“I must have touched a button,” she
said. “But where?”

She tried pressing the ends and sides
and undersides of the surfaces, hoping
to discover the source of the seemingly
magic action. However, no button was
to be found.

“How curious,” Louise murmured.
“I’ve never believed in ghosts or
witches or magic, but yet — what shall
I find here?”

From the drawer she lifted the scarf
of black silk that [had been laid neatly
over the contents.

“O-o-oh! What beautiful chess-men!
They’re jeweled! And so intricately
designed ! ”

For a long moment Louise simply
stared at them. They seemed too won-
derful to be touched: She could not

have been m’ore fascinated by a chest-

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

131

ful of gold and precious stones.

■ She reached, then, to take a white
king — reached slowly, hesitantly, not
quite certain whether she ought

Swish!

The white king leaped into her fin-
gers t

As a small piece of steel might jump
toward a passing magnet, so this little
doll of carved ivory bounded from the
drawer to her approaching hand. Louise
held it up to the light, pressing it
tightly. Another hidden button per-
haps? An electric eye? An unseen,
spring?

Again Louise felt the chilling nerves
of uncertainty and fright playing
through her body. She looked at the
great white mansion, half a mile away.
It stood there, reassuring her, and be-
yond its shadowed walls was the wide
lake, alive with moonlight. She was
not dreaming; but this garden some-
how contained the curious fancies of
a dream come true.

She reached for the white queen. It
jumped into her hand. Then, as she
started to place both pieces on the
board, they hopped down to the cor-
rect squares.

Castles, bishops, knights and pawns
—black and white — they all cooper-'
ated. In a twinkling every piece was
in its place. The knights, however,
Louise had to pick up to examine more
closely, for she had never seen any
quite like them. Instead of being the
usual horse heads, they were swords-
men, from head to toe perfect minia-
tures of ye knights of olde. What par-
ticularly attracted Louise’s attention
was the flash of the swords. She fancied
that the black knight had moved his
weapon in a gesture of defiance. The
blade had flashed light upward, toward
a bough of silver maple that overhung
the table, but. the movement had been
so swift that she couldn’t be sure.

T OUISE had only her own two eyes
with which to verify all this sur-
prising conduct. What she had seen
thus far was disturbing, and she would
have preferred to think it all a matter
of mechanical tricks, together with cer-
tain deceiving effects of moonlight and
shadow. Her chosen world was a world
of scientific fact. In her capacity as
the nation’s very popular “Miss Citi-
zen” she had bent every effort to in-
fluence the nation’s lawmakers from a
scientific point of view.

She had, in fact, urged that the legis-
lative minds in Washington would do
well to throw personal grudges and per-
sonal ambitions to the winds and to
give an intelligent ear to the voices
of the world’s scientists. If she had
consented to stay on for a fourth year
in the honorary position of “Miss Citi-
zen” she would have assembled a con-
clave of the world’s scientists in Wash-
ington to present a summary of what
the mid-twentieth century world of
science might offer for a world of bet-
ter government.

This plan she had carried so far as
to extend a number of provisional in-
vitations. And then, soon afterward,
she had been forced to withdraw them.
Out of consideration for her own per-
sonal welfare she had suddenly with-
drawn from good-citizen activities.

Such was her popularity that her in-
fluence would not end at once. The
editorials all over the country had as-
sured her of that. She had been called
a girl genius, a political prodigy, a nat-
ural leader. All of which had made
her smile with what the movie com-
mentators had termed her characteristic
modesty. She denied that she was in
any sense a genius. She could not be
termed a politician in the conventional
sense, for she had no ambitions dor a
spectacular personal career.

“My political philosophy is simply

132

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

this,” she had said over and over. “We
possess an abundance of sure knowl-
edge. Let us apply what we know. Let
our government always look to the facts
that science has supplied. If these facts
are consulted, a fair government will
know what to do for the general good.
If these facts are disregarded, it means
that the government prefers to play
favorites and serve selfish interests. In
this age of science no lawmakers in th?
world are justified in blundering along
with the mistakes of yesterday. The
roads have already been cut through
the jungles of stupidity and ignorance.
We have only to use them.”

When Louise Wilmott said these
words over the radio, everything was
perfectly, clear to her. The earth stood
solid beneath her feet, and her eyes
saw clearly the goals ahead.

How far away all of that seemed to-
night! She had left one universe and
stepped into another, it seemed. This
new universe was somewhat topsy-
turvy; it was shockingly disordered; it
made her feel giddy, the way she had
once felt after too many exciting rides
at Coney Island. And somehow she
welcomed it— it was all so gay and dif-
ferent.

gHE began to play a game of chess.

She moved the white king’s pawn,
and ventured forth with her bishop.
And to her great delight her black op-
ponents moved themselves. Presently
she found her king in check. She
laughed aloud, and scooped the pieces
toward the drawer. They leaped in
and the drawer closed itself silently.

“It must be hours past midnight,”
Louise said, as she hurried back across
the garden. “But I’ll come again to-
morrow night. I wonder if he’ll be
there again. I wonder

Someone was coming out from the
house to meet her: Brenda, the cook.

“Child, what ever happened to you?
I was worried to death. Are you all
right?”

“Of course, Brenda. Why?”

“I never thought you’d go so far. It
might be dangerous. Myself, I never
go beyond that last row of rose bushes.
Your auntie used to say it wasn’t safe
for anyone but Teddy White and the
gardeners to go straying around.”
“Why not?”

“Don’t be upsetting me with ques-
tions like that,” said Brenda, leading
the way back to the house, “Do you
think I’d sleep tonight if I started tell-
ing you tales about all the pets we’ve
lost along that ravine at the north side
of the gardens?”

“Pets?”

^ “Not to mention two or three garden-
ers. Yes, and a, three-year-old child.”
“Brenda! When did any such things
happen?”

“There now. I’m not going to say
a thing about it. Do you think I want
to spoil your night’s sleep? I wouldn’t
do that — though there’s precious few
hours left to sleep. Now you come
right into the kitchen with me and we’ll
have that midnight snack — unless you’d
rather I’d make it breakfast and' be
done with it.”

“Brenda, you’ve got to tell me.
Whose child was it?Did my aunt know?
Did the officers come and search?”

' “Not another word, child. Here, take
this glass of milk. I’ll have a sandwich
ready in a jiffy. After your long ride
I’m blessed if I can see how you could
spend half the night mooning around

in the garden. Now ”

“Brenda, tell me about Theodore
White.” Louise spoke out of the reverie
that still hung over her. “I’m curious
to see him. He must be tall and slender
and broad-shouldered, and he speaks in
a deep voice.”

“H-m-m. Did you ever win a guess-

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

133

ing contest?”

“Am I right?”

“You couldn't be wronger. His voice
is as deep as the chirp of a week-old
chick that’s lost its mama. And tall?
I doubt it he comes up to my chin.”
“Oh,” Louise voiced her disappoint-
ment. “And he isn’t young?”

“A spring chicken, as I said before.
Around fifty. He’s a sweet boy, Teddy.
A bit jumpy and full of nerves like a
schoolboy. You should see how inter-
ested he was when, those letters started
coming in for you with the names of
all those scientific laboratories on the
envelopes. It was all I could do to
keep him from reading them.”

“He probably knows some of them. I
wonder what they wrote.”

“Open ’em, child.”

“Not till morning,” said Louise
dreamily. “My head is' too full of
other things to think about science to-
night.”

“I’ll have a^lot to tell you about how
things are going when you want to lis-
ten. Teddy’s a sweet boy, as I say, but
he’s no manager. He’s so deep in his
private studies he doesn’t do a thing to
keep the place up. The sensible thing
would be to get rid of him. He hires
garden workers and forgets to pay
them. I declare we’d starve to death
around here if I had to depend on him
to balance the grocery budget. Just
like a forgetful schoolboy. Sometimes
I think I ought to take him across my
knee and spank him. And then again
I tell myself that when a boy gets to be
fifty he’s too old to spank.”

“We’ll discuss the matter later,
Brenda,” Louise said, smiling. “Good
night.”

A SUDDEN thumping of feet on the
stairway caused Brenda to ejacu-
late, “Good heavens! The house must
be falling in!”

“Brenda! Brenda!” came a shrill
voice from the stairs — a squeak that
reminded Louise of a motherless chick.

Brenda gathered up her skirts and
thumped up two flights of stairs with
remarkable spryness for a woman of
sixty-five. Louise followed her, and by
the time they reached the third floor
they were both following Professor
Theodore White.

The professor was tiptoeing along the
corridor in his flannel nightshirt. With
his thin white hands he was shading
his eyes from the wall lights as he tried
to peer through the door of his study.
He stopped and stroked his short white
beard thoughtfully.

“I’m positive I heard someone on the
roof,” he said. “I’m positive, Brenda.
I wanted you to corroborate my obser-
vation.”

“Does that mean you want me to
climb up and see?” said Brenda.

“I think it must be spies,” said Theo-
dore White. There was a frightened
tremolo in his squeaky voice. He saw
Louise, then, and gave an astonished
gulp. “Where’d you come from?”

“I’m Louise Wilmott. I’ve come to

spend a few months ”

“Were you up on the roof looking
through my skylight? No, it couldn’t
have been you, because it was a man.”
The professor gave a laugh of confu-
sion. “And you’re a girl. ”

Louise smiled. She observed that
Teddy White had an amiable face and
a high forehead, and he wore his spec-
tacles well even when in his night-
shirt.

“A false alarm,” Brenda grumbled.
“You’ve been dreaming things.”

“I’m completely awake,” said Teddy
White. “What I saw was no halluci-
nation. I had simply tilted my head
back, the better to contemplate certain
matters pertaining to the square feet of
surface over the face of the planet,

134

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

when my gaze suddenly, came to a focus
upon this gentleman — if an eavesdrop-
per may be called a gentleman — you’ll
permit me this liberty ”

“Go on,” said Brenda.

“He was leaning forward over the
skylight, so that the forelock of his
bushy hair marked the dust on the
glass — and if you’ll look closely now
as we go in you’ll see the arc he de-
scribed as he swung out of sight.”

“Did he wear a mask?”

“Only the sly mask of an evil counte-
nance. He must be a spy. He must
have known that this is the week — ’’
Theodore White’s voice lowered to a
whisper — “this is the week that my
most sensational theory goes down in
black and white.”

“What are we going to do?” Brenda
asked.

“If he’s up there with a gun,” said
Louise, “we’re not safe at this open
doorway. Is there another door we can
enter?”

“This way,” said Brenda.

T OUISE followed them back through
the corridor and into a dark store-
room. They moved a dusty piece of
furniture and opened the door just wide
enough to peek through. Louise caught
a glimpse of a deskful of papers, sur-
rounded by globes, maps and wall hang-
ings full of mathematical formulje.

Only the green desklight was burn-
ing, but it was sufficient to cast a dim
glow across the skylight.

The marauder was there, all right, a
dark form against the night sky. He
wore no mask, no gloves, no jewels.
His face could not be seen clearly, but
Louise noted that his head was wide
at the cheek-bones. His thick eye-
brows and heavy mustache might or
might not be false.

“He’s working with a glass-cutter,”
Brenda whispered. “See?”

“Doesn’t anyone have a gun?” Louise
asked.

Click. The small rectangle of glass
was freed from the pane, to be lifted
out by a handle of adhesive tape.
Swiftly another bit of tape came sailing
down through the aperture, suspended
from a cord. The marauder passed his
arm through and began to maneuver
the cord, trying to catch one of the
desk papers with the tape.

“But you can’t have those!” Theo-
dore White screamed and burst
through the door like a barking terrier.
He grabbed the paper that had started
to. sail upward.

Then came the crash.

Louise was not sure that the man
overhead meant to fly through. Down
he came with a great crash of glass.

He came, wits and all.

He landed on the desk first, bounded
to the floor, whirled, scooped up an arm-
ful of papers, thrust them into the collar
of his dark blue shirt.

In the flurry of excitement Louise
saw him strike at Teddy White; she
saw him start in her direction, then
shift toward the other door where
Brenda had gone to block his way.
He flung Brenda aside savagely and
dashed out. His footsteps thudded
down two flights of stairs and he was
gone.

CHAPTER III

Business for the Doctor

r J''HE following morning a part of the
household sat around on the east
porch displaying black eyes and ban-
dages. From their doleful talk one
might guess that they hadn’t enjoyed
their brief game of cops and robbers.
The worst of it was that the robbers
had won.

“My theories! My pet theories.

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

135

Those brain children that I’ve nursed
along from infancy! Where are they
now?” Theodore White wailed.

“They’re in that roof-smasher’s blue
shirt,” said Brenda. “I hope they give
him congestion of the lungs.”

“My pets! All my wonderful words
of erudition! What will the world do
without them?”

“The world will have to cripple along
somehow,” said Brenda. “But we’ve got
to have a new skylight before it rains.”
Teddy White lingered around sorrow-
fully. To one of his pallid complexion
a black eye was a conspicuous adorn-
ment, not altogether unbecoming. Each
time he passed a mirror he liked it
better. It was, in a way, a badge of
manhood, symbolizing the courage of
his attack upon the big, brown-haired
invader.

“I do believe Teddy is growing up,”
Brenda said, coming into the drawing
room where Louise was opening her
letters.

“How are you feeling, Brenda?”
Louise asked. “Are the glass cuts pain-
ing you much?”

“Scratches,” Brenda said, disdain-
fully. “Just an excuse for bandages.
What hurts me is that I didn’t have a
flatiron in my hand when that big
grizzly bear pushed me in the face.
Who do you suppose he was? Oh, par-
don me, I see you’re busy.”

“Yes, this mail turns out to be rather
important,” said Louise.

“You go right ahead. I’m having the
maid take care of the breakfast duties
this morning. She’ll be right in with
some toast and coffee.”

The toast and coffee came at once,
and Theodore White and Brenda
joined Louise around the tray.

“I’m surprised that my chauffeur
hasn’t come down,” said Louise. “Has
anyone seen him this morning?”

“I was surprised he didn’t show up

for the excitement last night, I don’t
see how he could have slept through.”
“And he used to be a prize fighter,”
said Louise. “I’ll see that he’s with us
if we have a return engagement.”

“It won’t happen again,” Teddy said,
holding his white head sadly. “It
would take me years to assemble
another such army of facts and figures.
It’s gone.”

“There, there. Don’t cry over spilt
theories, young man,” said Brenda.
“Just go right after it again. In
another ten years or so — ”

“What was your theory?” Louise
asked. “What could the thief do with
it?”

Professor Theodore White looked
up very curiously. He put his coffee-
cup down. He rose to his feet, cast his
visionary eyes toward the ceiling and
stroked his white beard thoughtfully.
Finally he spoke, in solemn words.

“I don’t know. As a matter of fact
precisely speaking, I really don’t
know.”

'^^7'HEN breakfast was done, the
chauffeur had not yet appeared.
The maid returned with a note.

“He wasn’t in his room, Miss Wil-
mott,” the maid said, “but he’d left this
note for you in the hall door.”
Louise scanned the message.

“Miss Wilmott — It is about an hour
after midnight as I write this note. I
met the man in the mask just now and
he told me you wanted me to go back
to the Lantern Village to get the doctor,
so’ I’m on my way at once. I hope this
is all right with you. He told me you
were still out in the garden and might
not want to be disturbed. So here goes,
and I’ll be back by breakfast if I can.”
Louise read it aloud. When she had
finished, all three of her listeners asked
in bewilderment, “The man in the
mask?”

136

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Louise looked from one to another of
them. Brenda's laughing old eyes were
question marks. Teddy White's friendly
and over-intellectual face took on a
scowl of puzzlement. The thin, angular
maid stared, sad-eyed, obviously baffled.

“Listen to me,” said Louise with a
note of sharpness. “All three of you
have lived here for years. You are, in
fact, the only persons who have been
here continuously, so far as I know,
since the death of my aunt. Various
gardeners and other employees, I un-
derstand have come and gone. But
you three — you should know what there
is to be known about this place. Am
I right?”

There were three affirmativeanswers.
“Very well, I wish to know what
you know about this man in the mask.”
“Horrors!” Brenda excaimed. “I
never heard of him.”

“And you, Janet?”

The maid looked as if she might
burst into tears. She stammered that
she knew nothing about any strange
people whatsoever, not counting Brenda
and Professor White.

“Professor White,” said Louise, “you
are in charge here. Since the death of
my aunt the good order of this estate
has been your responsibility. Are you
aware that there is this very mysterious
person — this man who wears a black
fan-shaped head-dress with a band of
jewels, whose face is masked in black
silk, whose belt is studded with emer-
alds .? Well?”

“Was he barefoot?” the professor
asked. “Or was he wearing white
shoes? From my third floor window
I can’t discern such details.”

“Then you have seen him!” said
Louise. “It happened that he was not
barefoot when I met him last night,
though from his habits I would suspect
he might prefer that mode. At any rate
you are aware that this place is being

watched — I might say haunted — by
this weird apparition.”

“I really hadn’t given it any thought,”
said the professor blankly. “But I’ll
set my mind to it.”

His lack of concern annoyed Louise.
She put questions to him pointedly.
What did he think when he first saw
this black ghost? Didn’t he consider
the possible implications — arson, rob-
bery, even murder?

Teddy White shook his head like an
errant pupil. “Usually when I look
out of my window late at night I don’t
pay any attention to what I see. My
theories are the one and only focus of
my concentrations. That’s. the way it
was the night that little three-year-old
boy strayed off through the garden and
got lost in the ravine. Afterward I re-
membered having seen him — ”

''JpHE sound of a car interrupted this
discourse. The chauffeur had re-
turned from Lantern Village. Accom-
panying him was a round little doctor
with double chin that filled the open
collar of his checkered sports shirt.

“Well, well, well,” said the doctor in
a great round voice. “What an ideal
spot for a sanitarium. I don’t often
get back into fhese deep woods. Nice
view. How many neighbors do you
have around this lake? I’ve counted
twenty-five houses and they all look
like castles. Enough to support a good
sanitarium. Well, well, we’d better get
busy. I’ll need some hot water to boil
these instruments and we’ll have those
bullets out in a matter of minutes.”
“Bullets?” Brenda gulped. “Whose
bullets?”

“I’m not concerned with that end of
the case,” said the doctor. “Lead me
to the patient, please.”

“Doctor Marcus, there isn't any
patient,” said Louise. “That, is, not
yet.”

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

137

‘‘What do you mean, no patient yet?
What is this — an obstetrics case? They
told me ”

“Please sit down, Dr. Marcus. Til
explain. ”

“I’m a busy man,” the doctor
growled. “What’s this all about?”

“I’m Louise Wilmott. I came here
last evening ”

“Louise Willmott! Oh! Well! Well!
I thought I’d seen that pretty face
before. I never miss the newsreels.
You’re taking a vacation, I under-
stand.”

“Yes — at my own estate — for the
first time. Last night after I arrived
I met a very mysterious person in the
garden. To make a long story short,
he convinced me that we would need
you very soon ”

“To remove bullets,” the chauffeur
added.

“I don’t understand,” said the doc-
tor. “When is the shooting supposed
to start?”

Louise shook her head. No one
knew, unless it would be the strange
young man in the jeweled mask.

“See here,” said the doctor. “I’m a
very busy man, but I always have
time for important people. Suppose
you tell me, Miss Wilmott, all the cir-
cumstances of this meeting. ”

“Well — ” Louise hesitated. “It was
all very bizarre. I haven’t told Brenda
or the others because — well, I was
rather tired, and this morning it seemed
too — too impossible ”

“Did anyone else see the man in
the mask?”

“I did,” said the chauffeur. “I met
him in the garden after he had talked
with Miss Wilmott.”

“Very well, Miss Wilmott,” said Dr.
Marcus. “Give us your whole story —
or if you prefer to tell me alone ”

Louise was quite willing to have the
others hear. She recounted each detail

of the previous evening’s adventures.
She did nOt omit the curious behavior
of the chess-men. The later episode
of the skylight, too, came in for its re-
counting. But Louise was inclined to
regard the events as separate. She be-
lieved that the skylight intruder and
the jeweled ghost were two different
persons.

When the doctor had heard all ac-
counts he shook his head importantly.
“It doesn’t make sense, does it — to
you? Very strange, you think? I’ve
come not a minute too soon. Miss Wil-
mott, come out on the porch and I’ll
speak with you alone Very well,
bring your friend Brenda, too, if you
prefer.”

The doctor added that there was no
friend like an old friend — a remark
that brought a quick rebuff from
Brenda, who insisted that she was just
in her prime.

'Y^7'HEN the three were alone on one
, of the south porches,, the doctor
lowered his voice, to give forth a few
brusque words in confidence.

“I’m not partial to removing bullets.
If it’s a case of a troubled brain in-
stead, I don’t hesitate to apply a
psychological scalpel to remove the of-
fending complex.”

“Whose brain are you talking
about?” asked Brenda.

“Not yours, you may rest assured,”
Dr. Marcus said, turning a sly twitch
of his cheek toward Louise. “Frankly,
Miss Wilmott, these stories add up to
a mental case. Still more frankly, you
may be it.”

“I?” Louise gasped.

“You’ve admitted the necessity of
escaping to the country, of arriving here
very tired, of yielding to a foolish com-
pulsion to spend a couple of hours in
the moonlight when you should have
gone straight to bed. If — and I must

138

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

emphasize the if, since I have not had
time for a systematic diagnosis — if you
come here on the verge of an exhaus-
tion psychosis, it would not be surpris-
ing that you should hear voices and
experience other slight delusions —
jumping chess7men, for example.”

Louise bowed her head. “I under-
stand. In fact, I had wondered
if . . ”

“However, it is just as probable, I
hasten to add, that, my case may be
the young exhibitionist who frequents
this garden for the purpose of frighten-
ing people with, threats of bullets. A
diagnosis may prove that he should be
confined in a prison rather than a hos-
pital.”

“Oh!” Louise shook her head.
“Please — it’s probably me — my weari-
ness.”

“Let me be brutally frank,” said the
doctor, whose brutal frankness no one
would think of doubting after two min-
utes’ observation. “I’ve come a. hun-
dred miles to handle a case. Whether
it’s you or the man in the mask is a
matter I’ll decide after further investi-
gation. In either event, I’ll present my
bill to this estate. Is that understood?”

Louise nodded, weakly. She was in
no state of mind to contest this ar-
rangement.

But Brenda was fighting fit and she
had the advantage of two score and
more years’ experience with men of
Dr. Marcus’ stripe.

“Why, you chiseling young whipper-
snapper. You ought to be spanked.
I ought to ”

Brenda’s hand caught up a flower-pot
and smashed it down over the doctor’s
head. He rolled to the. porch floor
under a deluge of good earth and the
fragrance of geraniums.

“There,” said Brenda, feeling her
muscle. “That makes up for missing
my chances last night.”

“Brenda, you shouldn’t have done
that, even if he was rather officious—”

Louise broke off. Sounds from the
roadway attracted her attention.
“Someone’s coming. Maybe it’s Dar-
lene, my secretary — I hopel”

Before Brenda looked up, she helped
the unfortunate doctor roll himself over
to the corner where he rose to a sit-
ting position and tried to shake' off the
effects of the recent avalanche.

Louise ran down the steps. She was
followed by others from the house, curi-
ous to know who was arriving.

“It must be one of the scientists,”
Louise called back. “The letters said
— look! He’s weaving all over the
road!”

The approaching car failed to make
the curve of the driveway. It came
to an abrupt stop with two hubcaps
screeching against the low rock wall.

The stranger must have been asleep
or ill, Louise thought. She waited at
the porch steps while Brenda and the
chauffeur hurried across to see what
was what.

The chauffeur was first to reach the
car door. His spoken greeting received
the feeble response of whispered words
from the stranger’s lips.

“He’s passing out!” the chauffeur
called back. “Someone’s shot him in
the chest. He thinks he’s dying.
Where’s that damned doctor?”

CHAPTER IV
The World Pours In

r JpHE little round doctor had a busy
day. By two o’clock in the after-
noon, however, it was all over and he
blustered a sigh of relief and asked for
a drink.

“I’m glad I came, in spite of that
Amazon that tried to murder me with
a flower-pot,” he said, between healthy

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

139

gulps of wine. “If you can keep the
customers lined up for me every day
I’ll lease this property for a hospital.”

The customers hadn’t been so numer-
ous^ however. On totaling up his bill
he discovered he had removed only four
bullets, and none of his patients gave
much promise of expensive complica-
tions.

Since noon, much to Louise’s relief,
the scientists had been coming through
unmolested. Seven taxis and two rented
cars loaded with European scientists
had negotiated the highway without
even being shot at. They could thank
the state police for that.

It was all inexplicable at first. The
scientists were so amazed that they
could talk of nothing else all day.

Louise was more amazed than any-
one. She had come here for a vacation.
She had assumed that her latest com-
munications to these noted men of let-
ters would cancel her earlier plans for
meeting with them.

But the stack of mail she had found
waiting for her here had dispelled that
illusion. The men of science, fifty 0$,
more of them, had gotten in touch with
each other and agreed that Louise Wil-
mott’s plan was so promising it must
not be dropped. And so, even though
she had retired from her three-year
throne of honor as Miss Citizen, they
would come anyway.

As the French botanist observed, “Ze
eenfluence zat you wield cannot be
thrown to ze weends. Ze world she
steel have her on you.”

And so they were arriving by twos
and threes and dozens.

The mysterious enemy that sought
to bluff them out with bullets could
not be accounted for. Before noon the
desperadoes either ran out of ammuni-
tion or were frightened away by the
state police.

It was naturally a day of great con-

fusion, complicated by new arrivals
hourly, and further complicated by the
coming and going of state officers who
were determined to make a speedy
roundup of the anonymous trouble-
makers.

The officers ran into thick storms of
violent talk in unknown tongues in their
search for a key to this mystery.

Dr. Marcus steered them away from
any consideration of a masked man or
jumping ivory on a chess board near
the garden pavilion. The crusty doc-
tor warned them that they should dis-
count any testimony of Louise Wilmott,
pending his own investigation of her
sanity.

Consequently, the police were left
only the skylight intruder as their sus-
pect. And they were’t entirely satis-
fied that he had any motive for road-
side attacks. Why should he take pot-
shots at scientists he had never seen?
Evidently he had already got what he
wanted; namely, Professor White’s
papers.

The possession of the papers, how-
ever, might not give this desperate thief
a complete monopoly on their contents.
Was it not possible that Professor
White was planning to pass his knowl-
edge on to these visiting scientists? If
so, the criminal must have intended to
puncture this plan by turning them
back.

Professor Theodore White stroked
his little white beard thoughtfully.

“Donate my theories to these visiting
scientists? By the great Greek scholars,
it could be done! As a matter of fact,
scientifically speaking — yes, it could be
done. By the great Greek scholars, it
shall be done! I’ll tell Miss Wilmott
at once. My years of work may be
saved after all. And I will get full
credit!”

The' officers couldn’t make anything
of his excited antics. They simply gave

140

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

their promise that the gunman would
be searched down, and drove away.

T OUISE had discovered by this time
that she was not only running a
convention, she was also operating a
hotel. There were guests by the dozens,
and they all preferred to share the ex-
pense of accommodations here rather
than commute from the hotels of the
nearest villages.

Only a Brenda could rise to meet
such a challenge. She took the burden
of these matters off Louise’s hands.
She kept the sad- faced maid on the
hop, she organized the garden workers
into a kitchen squad, she hounded
Teddy White for help until he fled
to his skylighted office.

Meanwhile, Louise was swept into
the highly stimulating conversations re-
lating to the advancement of science.

Occasionally, as she listened, her
thoughts winged away to those strange
and fanciful images of jeweled chess-
men gliding over .the moonlit marble
board.

“I’m going back tonight,” she vowed
to herself. “I’m going back — to make
sure — to prove to myself that it was
only my fancy.”

The radio news during the dinner
hour contained one item that caught the
imagination of the scientists. Louise,
too, was struck through with something
like an electric shock.

“No further clue has come to us,”
said the news announcer, “concerning
the shootings which occurred along the
Lantern Village road a few miles from
Louise Wilmott’s country home. As a
matter of incidental, interest, however,
the young man who first notified the
state police of this trouble is believed
to be the well-known political orator,
Robert G. Porter. Mr. Porter, as every-
one knows, once won a senatorial elec-
tion over James Stark, but was after-

ward found ineligible to hold the office.”

Louise caught smiles from all corners
of the dining room. These guests were
an interesting group, so very congenial
regardless of their difficulties with the
King’s. English. There were Americans
among them, too, famous names and
faces that were familiar to Louise. She
couldn’t help realizing that the whole
group of them loved her, and it wa3
quite amusing the way they vied with
each other to secure her attention.

The radio mention of Robert Porter
and James Stark gave the American
scientists their chance to recount some
harmless gossip concerning the careers
of the persons involved.

Sometimes Louise blushed a little as
she listened. Both of these men were
her personal friends. Presently she ex-
cused herself to answer a long-distance
telephone call.

J^OUISE VVILMOTT had often
denied that " she was a political
genius, and the public was aware that
^she was not striving for a high political
career for the sake of selfish ambition
or personal glory. But Louise Wilmott
herself was something of a legend.

She.- had once been known as that
nice little Wilmott girl who ran errands
for people. Back in the small town
she had done all sorts of odd jobs while
attending high school. When she went
on to college, she worked for two years
in the homes of wealthy people, as maid,
bookkeeper, hostess, and companion to
the lady of the house.

Wherever she went she was recog-
nized as a person of talent and intellect
and beauty that was more than skin-
deep. Before she had finished college
she had traveled in Europe and learned
some foreign languages. Slowly but
surely, her single, simple philosophy
crystallized. Her friends watched her

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

141

apply it in a thousand ways, and they
were convinced.

In college politics, and soon there-
after toward the affairs of the nation,
she boldly declared her principles: Our
science stands ready to serve us; our
problems are quickly solved if we drop
personal prejudices and look to science
for our answers.

Two. promising young politicians
were primarily responsible for Louise
Wilmott’s rise to the honorary position
of Miss Citizen.

One was James Stark, the youngest
senator, a relative of one of the wealthy
families that had once employed Louise.

James Stark never made a speech, in
Congress or out, without referring to
her political principle.

When Louise recently decided to re-
tire from her throne of honor, it was
partly because of James Stark. He
wanted to marry her. She was not in
love with him.

Perhaps she had never had time to
fall in love. But was James Stark in
love with her — or was he seeking a
marriage that would enhance his politi-
cal prestige?

Louise had found it impossible to
answer that question. She had come
away from Washington partly to search
her own heart.

The person who had yielded his posh
tion in the Senate to James Stark was'
the magnetic young orator, Robert G.
Porter.

Bob Porter had been disqualified
from office on a curious technicality.
He was judged to be too young to meet
the constitutional requirements. It was
a rare case in which there were no exist-
ing records to show how old he was.

Bob Porter was quoted as saying,
“My age? I haven’t any age. Tm
simply a part of the never-ending life
of all mankind. I don’t feel any need
for an age.”

This statement was twisted into the
damning implication that Bob Porter
knew his years didn’t qualify him, and
so his victory slipped out of his hands.

But Bob Porter was a gifted speaker,
and he was put to work in Washington
and over the nation for a bloc of Con-
gressmen. They were the most out-
spoken champions of a true democracy,
and he was their silver-tongued spokes-
man.

Like his one-time opponent, he made
frequent references to the principle that
Miss Citizen stood for. But with one
important difference: “If science can
supply the answers ...”

That ever-present if was in itself a
challenge to thought. It would lead the
listeners to ask themselves, “Is there
an . agreement among the scientists on
these matters? Can science be applied
in this field? Would the lawmakers
dare to demand the scientists’ answers
in politics as they do demand it in their
telephones and radios and airplanes?”

Twice Louise Wilmott had been on
the same platform with Bob Porter, and
her brief, pleasant conversations with
him before and after the speeches were
her only personal association with him.

She had remembered those conversa-
tions, always with a renewed surprise
to recall that the confident young orator
had seemed a trifle shy in her presence.

r jpHEIR paths had not crossed for
more than a year. But somehow,
as Louise now left the dining room to
answer the telephone, she thought, half
aloud, “Bob Porter Bob Porter
What keeps bringing him into my
mind?”

She picked up the receiver, half ex~

pecting- But it was not Bob Porter.

It was Washington’s youngest and
handsomest senator, James Stark.

“I’ve just returned from South Amer-
ica,” came the familiar voice. “I find

142

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

that you make news even when you go
into seclusion.”

“Not intentionally,” said Louise,
laughing. “I came here to be alone.”
“And fifty scientists barge in on
you. I’d call that a major accident.”
The Senator sounded slightly sarcastic.
But in a very determined voice he added
that he’d like a chance to talk with that
group before it disbanded. “And I
want to talk with you, too, Louise, now
that you’ve had some time to think
things over.”

“But I haven’t had time to think of
anything: I just got here.”

“Come, come. I’ll bet you’ve had a
dozen games of chess with that nutty
scientist your aunt used to talk about.”
“Only one game so far.”

“And you beat him?”

“It wasn’t with him. It was — oh, I
can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me everything, Louise.
You know I don’t like secrets. I’m
going to fly out tonight.”

“Please, Jim, there’s such a lot of con-
fusion here.”

“Then tomorrow night. I’m coming
out and beat you at chess.”

“You never did, you know,” Louise
laughed.

“Sometimes I think that’s the rea-
son you’ve refused to marry me. You
and your silly chess. Wellj I’m com-
ing, and I’m going to win the game . .
Tomorrow night . . ”

Louise crossed the hallway to the
oaken doors with the squares of colored
glass. She looked out at the wide gar-
den stretching over the gentle slope
to the wooded hills. The shadows of
the poplars spread long and blue across
the open spaces. The sun was setting.
One of the garden workers was riding
back to the shed on the power lawn
mower. Night hawks were swooping
down on fluttering wings.

She ascended the stairs to her room,

picked up her little portable radio and
returned to the north door. She spoke
to the maid.

“Janet, you may tell Brenda and
Professor White that I’m going for a
walk this evening. I may be quite
late.”

CHAPTER V
Dancing Shadows

f jpHE rising moon gave forth its
shower of strained gold. The sil-
ver maples glistened. The red roses
on the trellis turned to deep purple.
The graceful white arcade and the
marble table softened their surfaces
with a mottled blanket of moonlight
and leafy shadows.

Louise placed the little portable radio
on the table, arid then there was music
to blend with the night’s colors and
forms and fragrances. There was Na-
ture’s music, too — the low, humming
sounds of a garden on a summer
evening, all a part of the larger sym-
phony of an enchanting night.

Louise sat, listened, waited. Her
soul was in tune with all this beauty.
The spirit that enveloped her was the
sort of indescribable pleasure that
might come with journeying far away
from the practical world of urgent
problems, drifting into a new universe
of untold wonders.

The table was before her. She had
only to touch the edge. The drawer
opened silently, as if in response to
her unspoken wish.

Silently the chess-men lifted back
the covering of black silk and crept
forth, each to his place on the surface
of pink and white squares.

Then it was that the jeweled men
began to move. Not as if in a game,
but to the music, gently swaying. The
music grew brighter; the little crea-

143

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

tures of ivory swung into the dance.

-It was fun to watch them. Louise,
laughing, began to sway with them, and
fancied she caught a quick smile from
the white queen each time the little
figurine spun around.

Louise began to tap her feet. Then
in response to a merry beckon from
the queen, she rose and began to dance
around the table.

She saw the mischievous black bishop
dodge in front of the black knight and
send him and his flashy sword spinning
across the king row. The knight avoided
falling off the table only by tumbling
against the little radio.. He gave the
volume control a turn as he climbed to
his feet. The little radio did its best
then to sing its music out to the whole
garden, and so the dance went on.

Dancing toys* dancing shadows,
dancing hearts.

Was it a shadow that moved through
the arcade and caught Louise dancing
in his arms? Or a toy? Or a human
heart?

Whatever it might be within its silken
mask and its jeweled cloak, it was a
part of the gay, rapturous night.

“Pm dreaming,” Louise whispered.
“I know I’m dreaming. But reality
is too far away. I’ll never, never wake
up.”

“Is there anything unreal about danc-
ing?” the jeweled phantom asked. “I
only wish there were a little sawdust
under our feet.”

“Yes — even if I’m dreaming,” Louise
smiled. “A little smoother footing —
a little sand, perhaps ”

“Sand — of course. That's easy.”

And as the low voice sounded in her
ear there was a sanded surface beneath'
her feet. What a pleasant dream, where
wishes could be so easily answered.

“And now,” her phantom partner
said, “you must have some emeralds
to match my own. A bracelet? Rings?”

AT ONCE the jeweled adornments
appeared to grace her hands — yes,
and her feet ! A band of precious stones
sparkled from the toe of each of her
slippers. The dance went on gayer
than ever. The weight of bracelets
made her aware of the graceful droop-
ing of her hands.

But should she accept this gift of
jewelry? No, that would be wrong.
Such exquisitely Valuable gifts! And
from one whose Very existence she was
trying to deny!

“What are you thinking?” her danc-
ing partner asked.

“They’re so beaUtiful^but I’m wait-
ing for them to disappear. I mustn’t
wear them.”

“They only add charm to your grace-
ful dancing. Are they too heavy on
your arms?”

“Please, let’s sit this one out,” said
Louise.

Then they were sitting hand in hand
at the edge of the platform, and the
gay dance was going on without them.
Only now it was just the shadows of
themselves that danced.

Most of the merry little chess-men
were still whirling and tumbling to the
radio’s rhythm. A few of- them were
standing at the edge of the table point-
ing, out to the phantom dance of Louise
and her partner. It amused the black
bishop so that he bent double with
laughter. The black and white queen
applauded in rhythm.

For the phantom dance was as if
Louise and the man in the mask were
still spinning about with graceful move-
ments. Only they weren’t really there.
It was just their shoes and jewels and
adornments that kept going. Louise
could see the emerald^studded fan-
shaped cap swaying as if being worn.
She would see the rings and the brace-
lets glide through curves, glittering with
reflected light. Beneath were her

144

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

jeweled pumps and his shoes carrying
on with swift graceful step.

“There we have it,” said the man
sitting beside her. “While our spirits
dance on we’ll sit here and talk. I
hope you don’t miss your slippers too
much.”

Louise smiled to discover that she
was in her stocking-feet. Her_ mys-
terious partner was barefoot.

“I should think,” she said, “that you
would remove your mask.”

“I hope to remove it very soon,” he
said. “First, however, I wish to be
sure that you are willing to go farther
with me into my world.”

“Is it a far-off world?”

“It’s a very special world,” he said.
“Very few persons will ever look to it
with an attitude of trying to under-
stand or appreciate it. The average
person would fear it as something un-
real.”

“I’m afraid I’m dreadfully average,”
said Louise. He was pressing her hand
with a touch almost as gentle as moon-
light. She could not understand the
spell that was being woven around her.
She tried to explain it to herself. “It’s
utterly unreasonable that I should have
come out here to see you again to-
night. But I can’t deny that I do
rather like you.”

“Will you come with me?” He rose.
“There is an invisible river of magic
flowing through this garden. Very few
persons ever see it. But perhaps you—”
Louise didn’t rise. Presently the man
in the mask sat down beside her again.
The music faded to silence and the
radio switch clicked off. Then Louise
saw that her pumps were on her feet,
that his shoes had been restored, that
the dancing chess-men were climbing
back into the drawer and drawing the
black silk over them.

“If you care to understand why I
am reluctant to enter this realm of

fantasy with you,” she said, “it is be-
cause it is all opposed to what I am
and what I believe.”

“Explain, please.”

“I have built my career out of
championing science.”

“And do you know all there is to
know about science? Or is much more
waiting to be discovered?”

“Much waits, I realize — but this
weird demonstration of impossibilities
that goes on out here in the garden —
it can’t have any reality.”

“You dislike it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. In fact, I find
myself turning to all these cavortings
of chess-men and magic jewelry. I am
falling in love with the- impossible!”
“And why not?”

J QUISE looked back toward the
lighted mansion. “The scientists
are. here tonight. They have come for
the benefit of my leadership — they are
ready to help me with the world’s most
important task — applying science to the
needs of government. This very mo-
ment I am a deserter to my own
cause ”

The man in the mask was looking
at her very intently. His fan-shaped
cap tilted back slowly, and she felt
the penetration of his steady dark eyes.
“Is that all?” he said.

“There is a certain ” she began.

“Ah!”

“A man who is making a career for
himself in Washington. He boosted
me for the position of Miss Citizen.
You may have heard of him. He’s a
senator.”

“I know him well,” said the man
in the mask. “He’s Senator. Stark.”
“Oh — how did you know?”

“He has crossed my path often
enough. I should know him.”

“Then he is not your friend?”

“My sworn enemy. And, need I add,

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

145

my bitter and hated rival.”

“Rival? For office?”

“For your hand. Yousee, Miss Wil-
mott^Louise — I fell in love with you
a long while ago. Now that the fates
have brought us together again I am
more hopelessly in love than ever.”
“Ohl” Louise caught her breath.
“And so I’m asking — aren’t you
ready to bend to this world of mine?
Is this senator in love with you?”
“He’s coming tomorrow night de-
termined to marry me.”

The man in the mask repeated slowly,
“Is he in love with you?”

“He has professed the highest ad-
miration for my scientific program.”
“And you?”

“I’m on a toboggan, coasting-^coast-
ing away — coasting into the unknown
so fast I can’t stop. Please^ -
“Take you back?”

“Please s’tay with me.”

CHAPTER VI
Vanishing Act

Jj^EENDA was having her difficulties
keeping everything under control.
Teddy White was no more help than
a ten-year-old boy. You’d think a man
of fifty with a white beard and a very
brainy forehead would be of some use
when it came to herding a gang of his
own fellow scientists.

“Your beard should be on a frisky
young billy-goat,” said Brenda. “Stop
running around in circles up and down
the stairs. What’s the matter?”

“It’s my papers,” Professor White
complained. “If I could but find a
few fragments of notes which brought
me to the summation of my theories,
I would have something concrete upon
which to base my abstract remarks to
my assembled compatriots.”

“In short, if you had your papers

you could talk,” said Brenda. “Have
you forgotten you made your gardener
burn all your waste paper the night
before the bushy-haired fellow dropped
through the skylight?”

“So I did. With that recollection I
shall deem it futile to search further.”
“What are you going to do? I’ve
sent the scientists into the big room for
their conference. They’re clamoring
for Louise. But if you’ll go ahead and

give them a speech ”

“Without papers? Impossible!”
“Can’t you give them some kind of
a speech right out of your head?”

“I would be out of my head to at-
tempt it. Where is Louise? Why isn’t
she here to quell this disturbance?”
“She’s gone for a walk. But we’ll
get her. It’s the only thing to do.
Teddy, could you — no, I’d just as well
do it myself.” Brenda started to the
door. As an afterthought, she turned
back to give Theodore White what she
thought was a reasonable responsibility.
“Watch that doctor, Teddy. See that
he keeps out of mischief.”

“Which doctor?” said Teddy. Prac-
tically all of these scientists were doc-
tors of something or other.

“Dr. Marcus. He’s much too inter-
ested in Louise’s bank account. Watch
him.”

Brenda hurried along the garden
path. At the last row of rose-bushes
she hesitated for a moment. For years
past she had refrained from going far-
ther. The strange disappearances of
past years — she had forgotten just how
long ago — had rooted a superstition in
her mind.

She summoned her nerve and hurried
on. Soon she was approaching the
graceful columns that surrounded the
little platform and marble table. She
could hear Louise’s low voice, now, also
the deep, soft-spoken voice of a young
man.

U(i

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

The voices fell silent. Brenda
stopped. Intuitively she felt that sjie
had nearly intruded upon a secret mo-
ment,

'through the leafy shadows she could
see the two forms— Louise and her mys-
terious friend. The young man was
not wearing a mask. He was holding it
in his left hand. And he was kissing
Louise.

J^RENDA glanced around her. She
moved a few steps closer. She
cleared her throat gently. They didn’t
hear her. Louise was speaking.

“To think that you are really Bob
Porter!” she said softly. “It’s been
you all along, Bob. But how could I
know? How could I know that you
ever thought of me after those short
times we were together?”

“Believe me* Louise, I’ve dreamed
of meeting you again,” the tall young
man said. “Not in Washington, but
here in this garden — near the river—”
“The river?”

“The invisible river. It’s my home,
Louise. That’s why I’d like to have
you see it as I see it. Not many people
can, you know. It’s right over here
at the ravine. Won’t yott come?”
“I— I don’t know, Bob. This is all

so sudden and ”

“And unbelievable, even now that
you know? . Please come with me.”
“Tomorrow night, Bob, I’ve promised
to talk with Jim Stark,” said Louise.
“He’s determined to win over me in
a game of chess. I’m going to bring
him here, Bob. I hope I’ll see you
too. Now ”

Louise was about to say goodnight
when, glancing back toward the man-
sibn, she saw Brenda standing there.

“Yes, it’s me,” said Brenda abruptly.
“I came to find you. The scientists
are waiting for someone to call them to
order.”

“Oh, Brenda,” Louise started down
to her. ‘‘This is the man in the mask

— only he’s really ”

“He’s really a ghost, and dpn’t try
to tell me different,” said Brenda. “All
right, kiss him goodnight and come. on.
Your party needs you.”

“But I thought Professor White ”

“Teddy ! That young rascal couldn’t
find any papers to speak from and he’s
in- such a stew he’s got me boiling.”
“Papers?” said the young man in
the black silk raiment. “I think I can
help.”

Whereupon he turned and walked off
into the wooded ravine. Brenda stared
into the deep shadows, a strange ex-
pression on her face.

“Did you see what I saw?” she asked
Louise.

“I saw him walk away, with the moon
lighting his waves of blue-black hair.”
Louise spoke as if in a reverie. “I saw
the glitter of emeralds as he put the
wide cap on over his mask. Then I
saw a thousand colors in the moonbeams
that carried him off into the darkness.”
“Ughl” Brenda muttered uncomfort-
ably. “I didn’t see any color. I’m
not sure I saw any jewels. But I’d
swear I saw him vanish!’

“He did vanish,” Louise whispered,
“in a river of magic.”

Presently the masked figure reap-
peared. He strode up and spoke pleas-
antly, but the mask was frightening to
Brenda and she kept moving away from
him.

“Here are the papers Professor White
lost,” he said. Then for a second time
he disappeared.

Every step of the way back to the
house Brenda grew angrier. Finally
she exploded. “River of magic! Don’t
tell me! He’s nothing but a common
thief, lurking in our woods. Give him
a chance and he’ll steal the very door-
steps off the porch. We’ve got to get

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

147

the police after him — the quicker the
better.”

CHAPTER VII
Darlene Takes a Ride

THE following afternoon Sena-
tor James Stark arrived at an air-
port within a two hours’ drive of his
destination.

While he was making arrangements
for a car to drive to the lakeside estate
he happened to find Darlene Donovan,
Louise’s secretary and companion. She,
too, was bound for the country mansion
to be with Louise.

“Just my good fortune,” the hand-
some young senator exulted. “I’ll load
up your luggage and we’ll be off to-
gether at once.”

“I’m sure Louise thinks I’ve deserted
her/’ Darlene said. “Still, according
to the papers, she hasn’t been suffering
for lack of company. Imagine it —
fifty scientists! Are we on the right
road?”

The car hummed down the highway.
Senator Stark always got a feeling of
power out of driving, and he never
drove anything less than the best. He
didn’t, have to. As soon as he was
accustomed to the touch of the wheel
and the foot-feed, he settled back and
turned his attention to the pretty girl
beside him.

This was luck indeed. Anyone as
close to the nation’s Miss Citizen as
Darlene Donovan would be sure to
have some influence.

“I talked with her on the phone yes-
terday,” said Stark. “I know she’s glad
I’m coming. Naturally.” He laughed.
“Not only because I’m her intimate
friend, the Senator, but also on account
of all those fireworks.”

Darlene frowned. “What do you sup-
pose caused all that excitement? Peo-

ple don’t just walk out to the road and
start shooting at the cars going by.”
“There must be money at stake,”
said the senator. Darlene observed that
he tilted his chin with an air of im-
portance. It was a well practiced pose,
famous for making his senatorial ora-
tory convincing. “Whatever these
scientists expect to get out of their
sojourn at her estate, they must be
on the trail of something with great
value. Otherwise no rival gang would
try to head them off.”

“So you think the scientists are mixed
up in a gang war?”

James Stark didn’t know about that,
but he was sure the police would bog
down in their investigation.

“From the babble of foreign scientists
there’s no way to know whether some
of the fifty might not belong to the gun
crew. I expect to start my own investi-
gation when I get there.”

This sounded to Darlene like a noble
purpose. “Could I help?”

"You’d do .anything for Louise,
wouldn’t you?” he said, rather too en-
thusiastically.

“She’s my best friend.” Darlene
wondered what he was getting at.

“I’m glad I ran across you,” he said.
“You can do something very important
for her. You can help her come to a
decision. I want you to talk to her.”
“What about?”

“Me,” said the senator. “I want to
marry her.”

“That,” said Darlene, “comes under
the head of not my business.”

“Look, Darlene.” James Stark un-
rolled some bills. “The next election
is just around the corner. What I need
before that election is the popular
Louise Wilmott for a wife. Suppose
Bob Porter should take a notion to run
again? Where would I be? I’m will-
ing to pay a fair price to swing the
deal. See?

148

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“I see too well. You’re trying to
bribe your way into popular favor. You
don’t love Louise.”

“Love— that hasn’t .anything to do
with it,” said James Stark, with an im-
pudent tilt of his head. “Be your age,
Darlene. The point is, I’m going to
marry her. If you don’t help me put
the deal over you’ll wish you had.”

“I don’t like to be threatened,” Dar-
lene snapped angrily. “You’ve opened
your mouth to the wrong person, Sen-
ator. I’m going to tell her everything
you said.”

jLTE HELD the steering-wheel and his
billfold with his left hand and
shuffled out some more bills. He slapped
the pack against his knee.

“There’s more cash than you could
make in a year. How about playing
the game with me?”

“Just what would you have me do?”
asked Darlene dryly.

“Put a bug in her ear. Tell her
there’s a rumor in Washington that
she’s unappreciative of Jim Stark’s
favors. Tell her the story is going the
rounds that everybody knows she wants
to marry him except herself and she’s
too stubborn to admit it. .Tell her the
congressional leaders Say her scientific
goal will suffer if she doesn’t take her
place in Washington society as my
wife.”

Darlene wanted to slap him. If he
had been anybody but the well-known
senator, she would have slapped him.

“Here’s the money,” he said in-
sistently. “Well, aren’t you going to
take it?”

Darlene was white with anger. “I’d
rather die than betray a friend like
Louise.”

“Don’t talk foolishness. That’s a
lot of money. Think it over while We
stop at this tavern for a drink.”

There was something strange about
the taste of the drink that James Stark
ordered for Darlene in the tavern. Dar-
lene drank leisurely. The senator had
remembered an important telephone
call. She had finished her drink by the
time he returned.

They got into the car again and sped
off ‘

Darlene yawned. For some reason
she was getting very sleepy. But why
not take a good nap? It would be hours
before they reached Louise’s place if
the senator kept driving this way.

“Where are we going?” Darlene
asked. “This can’t be right.”

“Don’t you like it?” James Stark’s
voice was edged with caustic sarcasm.

“This is the way back to the airport.
Why?”

“You’re a very sleepy girl, aren’t
you? Well, don’t let it worry you.
You’ll have time for a good long rest.”

“Everything— is- — fading,” Darlene
said slowly. She closed her eyes.

“Make it a long, sound sleep, you
little simpleton,”' said James Stark.
“After/ what I’ve told you, it wouldn’t
do to have you around where you can
talk — and so^ — - ’

“So-o-o?”

“So I’ve just called in for a reserva-
tion for you on a southbound plane.
Imagine yourself taking a long, long
trip down to Argentina. Won’t that
be pleasant?”

Darlene barely heard, and somehow
it sounded very pleasant. But she was
already too far away to answer.

CHAPTER VIII

The Senator Plays a Double Game

' jpHAT evening Theodore White was
interrupted just as he was being
presented to the assembled scientists.
What mysteries he was to expound no

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

149

one knew. For as he was in the very
act of swallowing his boyish embarrass-
ment and clearing his throat to speak,
Senator James Stark strode in.

Stark’s grand entrance swept every-
thing else aside. Photographers and
reporters were on hand to make the
most of this moment. Perhaps they
missed the most dramatic expression by
failing to snap the disappointment in
Theodore White’s face as he was nosed
out of his place in front of the audience.

The French scientist, who had been
chosen chairman for the evening, waved
his arms helplessly against the battery
of flash bulbs.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank
you ! ” the young senator shouted to the
crowd. The newsreel men followed him
toward the improvised dais. “It is a
pleasure to see such a fine group of
intelligent faces gathered together in
one room.”

Fifty scientists beamed like school-
boys.

“This moment has long been Louise
Wilmott’s wish,” the senator went on,
lustily. “And my wish as well. I can-
not say which one of us has wished for
you more. We’ll not split hairs over the
credit of your coming. The point is
that, at last, here tonight, we have
joined in a movement for closer co-
operation between science and the func-
tions of our government.

“And so, my dear friends, in appre-
ciation of your reception, I shall con-
sider it my duty to speak to you at
some length — ”

That was only the beginning. Thus
he was fairly launched, and all else that
might have happened on that evening’s
program was swept into a trash can of
oblivion.

Theodore White retired to the rear
door and did his best to listen atten-
tively.

Louise entered a few minutes late

and took a seat in the rear of the room.
She had met James Stark downstairs
a few minutes before. Now she was
greatly puzzled to discover this state
of affairs. The scientists, however, were
engrossed in the speech; and if they
had not been they would nevertheless
have listened respectfully, realizing the
high esteem which Americans bestow
upon their senators. They had forgot-
ten Theodore White, who, after all, was
comparatively unknown.

Disconsolately Teddy White turned
his notes over in his hands, and pres-
ently he left the assembly.

Stark talked on and on. Louise won-
dered, however, if he might be thinking
of something besides his speech. He
seemed to be searching the audience for
some familiar faces.

For whom? These foreign scien-
tists would not be known to him. It ap-
peared that he did expect, however, to
see a few persons he knew. Perhaps,
thought Louise, he was secretly worried
to discover that they were not present.

The senator’s eyes had occasionally
lingered with interest upon the scien-
tific documents which Theodore White
held, until growing discomfort had
caused the latter to walk out. This,
too, mystified Louise.

A T LAST the evening session with
the scientists was done, except for
the after-meeting babble. Whether the
conference had gotten off to a promise
of something practical seemed a matter
for debate in a dozen different lan-
guages. The young senator couldn’t
stay to answer questions.' He had other
matters to attend to.

“I’ll have an interview for you to-
morrow,” he told the reporters with a
wink. “I’m dated for a private conver-
sation with Louise Wilmott for the rest
of the evening. See you tomorrow,
boys.”

150

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

The reporters watched James Stark
and their own Miss Citizen as the two
walked down the steps. No one could
fail to note the contrast-— the young
senator’s bluster and egotism, Louise
Wilmott’s quiet charm of manner.

They sauntered out to the wide gar-
den, in time to see the late moon rise.

James Stark brought up the subject
of a chess game for the coming day.
“I want the pleasure 'of beating you.”
“You needn’t wait until tomorrow,”
Louise said. “Here are the chess-
men.”

“Is this the place? Where’s the
light?”

' “The rising moon,” said Louise. “Is
your game as good by moonlight?”
“Better. My best moves are made
on the sly,” said Stark. “Damned
careless Of someone to leave these
’jeweled men out here without lock and
key. All that glitter would buy a man
mto victory at the primaries. There.
Your move Oh, oh! Don’t scare
me that way.”

’ “What’s the matter?” Louise asked.

“I’m seeing things,” said Stark. “I
thought that player had jumped out
of your hands. But he settled down
where you wanted him, I guess, see-
ing that it costs me an -uneven trade.
Ugh! I am seeing things. I’ll swear
that knight swung at me with his sword
! . Shadows, I guess.”

After more moves, James Stark
planted his elbows on the table and his
nead in his hands for a long interval
pf concentration.

Louise waited and waited. The sena-
tor was not ready to move.

Out of the shadows came Bob Porter ,
jplad in black silks and gleaming jewels:
“Good evening, Louise Good

evening, Senator Stark.” How very
'natural Bob’s voice sounded, thought
Louise, now that she knew his identity.
He was no longer trying to disguise it,

nor was he attempting to take any ad*-
vantage whatsoever. He removed his
mask as he bowed.

Senator Stark didn’t even look up.
He was so completely engrossed in his
losing game that he couldn’t take his
eyes off the board. But he did mumble
unconsciously, “Don’t bother me,
Porter.”

Louise and her friend exchanged
glances. As will sometimes happen
when- one is in deepest concentra-
tion, Stark had responded to the
familiar voice, without actually taking
cognizance of the fact of Porter’s being
there.

“Go away, both of you. Don’t bother
me. I’ll find a way to win this game
yet.”

James Stark was desperate for this
game, thought Louise. He had what
amounted to a superstition that if he
could once win over her, he could break
down her resistance against his pro-
posal of marriage.

“We’ll walk toward the ravine,” said
Bob Porter, taking Louise by the arm.
“We’ll be back sometime after you’ve
made your move.”

They started off. They heard the
senator muttering to himself. “These
chess-men are fishy. They don’t stay
put — damn it, you can’t slip a false
move. They jump right back in place.
But that’s impossible. I must have the
jitters too damned much on my
mind. I’ll take a walk too. When I
come back I’ll have it.”

gENATOR STARK walked toward
the mansion. There was a great
deal weighing heavily in his thoughts
just now.

When he arrived at his parked car
he hastily opened a case containing a
small radio transmitter and receiver.

He was angry. He wasn’t used to
having his well laid plans go astray.

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

351

Where were those gunners? Why should
they all have disappeared from the
scene without leaving him any word?
It was the plan that if they failed to
turn the scientists back they were to
wedge their way in among the throng.
At all costs they were to have prev-
vented any public hearing of Theodore
White’s secret discoveries.

If Stark himself had not prevented,
the discoveries would already have been
made public. Something had slipped,
and bad.

Stark talked rapidly into the trans-
mitter microphone.

“Where are you, men? Who’s lis-
tening? Give me a signal, someone.
Where are you hiding? This is the
boss. I want to see you here on the
west side of the house right away. I
want to know who muffed the deal.
Those papers are still in White’s hands.
Another twenty-four hours and it will
be too late to clamp a lid on any secret
knowledge. Another twenty-four hours

— or less Are you listening? This

is the boss. Give me a signal, damn it!
Someone give me a signal!”

There were, no return signals. This
was unbearably mystifying. The sena-
tor kept trying. He never let the micro-
phone rest for a minute. The night
was passing. The chess game would
have to wait. Louise could wait, too.
She dare not know about this game.
But where did she go?

“Bob Porter!” Stark suddenly ejacu-
lated to himself. “What’s he doing
here? I thought he was at the other
end of the country.

“On the lookout, you men, for Bob
Porter. They say he was the first to re-
port your shooting to the state police.
But how the hell did he get onto it?
Come in, someone Still no answer!

All right, il I have to take this
deal over alone, that’s your hard luck,
boys. It'll be all my gravy, you damned

traitors. I’ll show the whole bunch of
you how to play off on me. Come in
. . . come in . . . come in . .

Utter and complete silence.

“All right for you, you lice! a
know who’s been throwing the monkey
wrenches, but that doesn’t excuse you
men. You’re out, the whole damned
bunch of you. That’s final. I’ll run
this show myself. Just watch me.”

CHAPTER IX

Into the Magic River

1~ OUISE walked with Bob Porter
Porter into the invisible river of
magic.

“Don’t be surprised,” he said, “if you
forget everything.”

“I can only think of the dancing
chess-men just now,” Louise said, “and
the astonishment in James’ face when
he couldn’t make them behave.”

“Your will was working on them,”
said Bob. “This is the unbelievable I’ve
been wanting you to see. When we sat
at the chess table we were in the edge
of this invisible stream. That’s why
the chess-men were so responsive to our
wishes ”

“And the jewels?”

“Yes, and the sand beneath our feet,
and our own dancing shoes, and the
very shadows of the moonbeams. But
I don’t expect you to understand so
quickly.”

Louise caught Bob’s arm. Her gasp
was of mixed amazement and delight.

“Colors!” Louise exclaimed. “I
see the colors again that I saw when
you vanished last night.”

“The river,” said Bob. “It’s all
around us. And a rare sight. But I
was sure you’d find yourself in harmony
with it. I’ve suspected it for a long
time.”

“And what if I weren’t in harmony

fantastic adventures

152

with it? It could have happened so.”
“You’d walk right through it without
ever knowing it was there. You would
see only the wooded ravine with its
steep black banks. And you might get
imired down in it. But as long as yoU'
can see the brightness you’re all right.”
“It’s like walking through a deep blue
night sky,” said Louise, “that is filled
with a million little colored stars, so
tiny that they brush my forehead and
cheeks and hands. They must be tiny
particles of dust, magically illumin-
ated.”

“Is the river so dark?” Bob asked.
“It’s coming brighter now,” said
Louise. “It’s all purple and redeyes,
and golden, too, where the tiny little
stars are closest together.”

“Your vision is growing clearer
rapidly. Tell me, Louise, are you still
walking-^ot are you standing still, Or

“We stopped walking minutes ago,”
said Louise, glancing doWn at her feet.
“And this time our shoes aren’t trying
to carry on for us. And yet we seem
to be moving. We’re floating along,
sometimes with the current, sometimes
against. Where are we going?”

“While in the invisible river We can
go anywhere — in effect— for the arms
Of this mighty stre&m seem to reach
out to the whole continent. Would
you like to pay a brief visit to Wash-
ington? You have only to wish.”
Through the riot of color that swam
before her eyes, Louise seemed to be
seeing the wings of the capital build-
ing approach to engulf her. Then she
was within one of the familiar corridors
where a well known painting stood
clear before her.

The hum of voices filled her ears.
Wisps of conversation could be gath-
ered from passersby. Two Washington
correspondents stopped to discuss a
matter that came close to home.

“I don’t know who started the
hirnot,” one Of them said, “but it
sounds reasonable to me. James Stark
has rushed back from South America
to wrap that scientific conference up
and chuck it in his own vest pocket.
Now if he can marry MisS Citizen in
the bargain, the Whole science-for-gov-
ernment movement might catch on and
do some good;”

The other columnist shook his head
skeptically. “You place more faith in
Jim Stark’s idealism than I do. Every
time I scratch his surface to see what’s
underneath I find he’s either driving for
more political power or more Wealth.
My guess is that he’s got some private
interest in this science meeting other
than Louise WilmOtt. Take a look at
his career . .”

HPHE scene shifted. Bob was slightly
disconcerted by their having caught
this particular bit of gossip. But Louise
only clutched his arm more tightly.

“Whatever the truth may be,” she
said, “I’m not afraid to hear it.”

In the next few minutes they crossed
the continent for fragments of political
speeches and radio addresses that were
making hews throughout the nation.
Frequent were the references to the sci-
entific conference at her OWrt estate.
America’s alert leaders were expecting
great things.

Then the river of magic brought them
back to the shore of the lake, and
through the misty colored light Louise
seemed to be looking at her own brightly
lighted mansion. She noticed, then,
that there was someone sitting in an
automobile to the west of the house.
On the instant her will commanded
an answer to her curiosity. She and Bob
seemed to be at the very window of the
car.

“It’s James Stark,” Louise whisp^
ered. “He’s talking into an instrument.

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

153

I thought we left him at the chess
game.”

“This game has him guessing, too,
evidently,” said Bob. “He seems to be
unable to contact any of his staff.”

“He has never told me about any
such staff,” said Louise. “Why should
he be using a short-wave set?”

“When one lives within the river of
magic he finds mysteries everywhere.
But most of them can be understood if
he has the patience to follow them.
That, incidentally, has been the chief
source of my education. You see, this
river is my home.”

“I don’t understand,” said Louise.

“I live here. I go and come by way
of this invisible river. It supplies me
with my food and clothing and shelter
and education.”

“But your real home ”

“This is it,” said Bob. “I wandered
into this ravine when I was only a small
child. Somehow 7 I was so much fasci-
nated by what I found here that I
couldn’t go back. I was happy here. I
watched the wonderful events of the
outside world as one might watch a con-
tinuous show. Time meant nothing to
me until I grew older. I never knew
my age. Gradually the world from
which I learned fascinated me more and
more until I began to venture forth
into it occasionally.”

“Didn’t you ever tell your parents
of your fate?”

“I was tempted to, when I knew that
Death was about to claim them. But I
thought better of it. For I had stayed
in this realm from choice. It would
have broken their hearts all over again
to know. And after all, could anyone
understand who has not seen for him-
self? This strange realm is my good
fortune. You understand, don’t you?”
Louise nodded. She was beginning
to understand.

“It’s a world in which the workings

of Nature’s own powers are bent to a
man’s will,” he went on. “But not to
any man’s will. There were a few other
persons — gardeners from your estate —
who strayed into the edges of this exist-
ence. But they were not in harmony
with it somehow. They could not see
what you have seen.”

“And so they returned?”

“No, they didn’t survive the ordeal.
The luckless fellows simply vanished .”
“You’ve been favored by the gods,”
said Louise, smiling with admiration.

“In all ways except one,” said Bob
Porter. His voice dropped to that low,
even tone like an echo out of a deep
well. It reminded her of their first meet-
ing in the garden, when he was not
Robert Porter, the famous political
orator, but a lonely phantom in silks
and jewels looking up at the stars. “The
gods have not given me a woman to be
my wife. That is something I must

win for myself Louise ”

“Yes, Bob?”

“What color is the river to your
eyes now? Is it still the stars in a
night sky?”

“Much brighter than that,” said
Louise. “The tiny stars are everywhere.
They’re dazzling like gold.”

“I love you, Louise. I want you to
marry me, to live in this v/orld with
me, to share its wonders. Will you,
Louise?”

CHAPTER X
Insanity?

“^ND then what happened?” Brenda
asked, quizzing Louise the follow-,
ing morning concerning her night’s ad-,
ventures.

Only for Brenda’s sake was Louise
willing to recount the details of her
strange excursion. She would have
spoken more freely if Dr. Marcus

154

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

hadn’t been listening too intently.

But as the excitement of the experi-
ence returned to her she spoke with a
glow of enthusiasm. There was no use
trying to hide any of the facts. This
was no dream. It had happened to
her, and no world tourist could be any
more delighted over a sight-seeing tour
than she was.

She overlooked Brenda’s suspicion
that the man in the mask was the sky-
light thief. Brenda would be reasonable
when she understood.

Far more serious, Louise discounted
Dr. Marcus’ attention to investigate
her sanity. She did not realize that this
morning he was more intent than ever
upon this purpose, owing to the fact
that he had been encouraged along
these lines by Senator Stark himself.

As Louise recounted her swift leaps
through space — from one coast to an-
other with the snap of her fingers —
every words of her strange confession
registered in Dr. Marcus’ mental notes.
He rubbed his hands exultantly. The
psychiatric board would make short
work of her. when they heard these
things — and he would see that she be-
came his most expensive case.

“Then he asked me to marry him,”
said Louise in conclusion, “to share his
world.”

“Oh, Louise! This is dreadful!”
Brenda exclaimed. “How can you seem
so happy over it? Have you forgotten
that he proved himself a thief?”

“He’s nothing of the kind, Brenda.
He’s the finest man in the world.”

“So you accepted?”

“No,” said Louise, “because right
then was when I heard your voice,
Brenda. You were calling me from a
hundred miles away, it seemed. I an-
swered you, and then the spell was
broken.”

“Thank goodness!” Brenda sighed.
“You gave me the fright of my life,

child, standing right there on the bank
of the ravine.”

“But Bob was with me.”

“More imagination,” Brenda said.
“You were all alone when I saw you.
Don’t you know that’s a dangerous
place? A little three - year - old -
child ”

“You’ve told me that one before,
Brenda,” Louise said. “That all hap-
pened more than twenty years ago.”

“M-m-m.” Brenda tapped her fin-
gers over her wrinkled forehead
thoughtfully. “Why, so it did. How
did you know?”

“Because Bob Porter is that child,”
said Louise. “He grew up as a child
of the invisible river.”

Dr. Marcus suddenly leaped up, slap-
ping his hand on -the table.'- “That
does it. I’ll have to report her at once.”
He called, “Senator Stark Oh,
here you are.”

The handsome young senator came in
and sat beside Louise. He took her
hand.

“There, now,” he said. “Whatever
comes, I’ll stand by you. But there’s
still a chance, you realize.”

•-“A chance for what?” Louise asked
innocently.

“To keep yourself out of an institu-
tion,” said Stark. “If you’d just be
sensible and banish all these strange
thoughts from your mind, you’d come
back to normal in a short time.”

Dr. Marcus didn’t care for such glib
optimism. “Her condition is far more
serious than you realize. In fact

SHORT snarl from the senator cut
- Dr. Marcus to cold silence.- Then
the senator led Louise out on the porch
where they could talk in private.

“You’re going to marry me, Louise,”
he said. “That will settle everything.
As soon as you forget Porter and his
mystic notions, you’ll be on the road

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

155

to recovery. You’re mentally ill, dear.”

“I’m not ill, thank you,” Louise said
angrily. “And I’m going to marry Bob
Porter! ”

“You’re intoxicated with fluffy
visions. I’ve never seen you like this.”

Louise knew from his talk that he
was burning up with jealousy toward
Bob. But there was something else
feeding the fires of his mind, too. Louise
recalled the hint of one of the Washing-
ton commentators — that James Stark
had probably come here on the trail
of a chance for more wealth.

Could it be that, even as he denied
the existence of this invisible river he
was plotting to make money out of it?

Could this staff he had tried to call
together by radio be a group of political
assistants? Or were they the gunmen
who had tried to forestall the scientific
conference?

Suddenly Louise was seeing it all
clearly. The invisible river was the
discovery that Professor White had
been theorizing upon. Through one of
the many gardeners who came and went,
the news had leaked out and fallen
into Stark’s - hands. To him the rumor
had the smell of a financial opportunity.

Naturally, then, he would want the
whole matter kept hidden from the
public eye until he had sounded it for
profits. Was it something to which hun-
dreds of thousands of people might
throng? Quick millions might be in
the offing.

As Louise was piecing together the
jigsaw of possibilities, Stark asked her
a question that clinched her suspicions.

“You’re going to forget that bad
dream, marry me,, and recover from
your delusions,” he repeated. “But
while this nightmare is still fresh in
your mind, do you recall whether it
came over you easily ”

“It was not a nightmare.”

“Suppose we say it was real,” said

Stark, pretending indulgence. “Do you
imagine that the average person could
enter the same experience as readily
as you did, and see the same sights,
and jump through space?”

Louise faced him defiantly. “If you
doubt the reality of it, why do you
ask? Surely you aren’t planning to
charge other people an admission fee
to enter my private dream!”

James Stark reddened. Testily he
said, “I’m afraid I can’t help you,
Louise. Dr. Marcus is right.”

“Indeed!” She turned on him and
her eyes were blazing fife. “Just how
much did you have to pay to make sure
he’d know all the answers.”

Stark’s face changed to magenta. He
glanced to one side to discover the
round little doctor. Marcus was run-
ning a temperature, too, judging by the
way he was swabbing his double chins
with a handkerchief.

“Louise, don’t be absurd!” Stark
snapped, “What right have you to
say ”

“Plenty of right,” said Louise. “A
radiogram reached me this morning
from my faithful friend Darlene, who
happens to be on her way to South
America. What she had to say about
bribes leaves you with exactly nothing
to say, Mr. Stark!”

“Let me explain ”

“Explain it to your voters before the
primary election.”

CHAPTER XI
Professor White's Theory

BRENDA said afterward, it was
the proudest hour of Teddy White’s
young life. He was a perfect embodi-
ment of dignity. The pointed white
beard and mustaches set him off beau-
tifully.

All in all, he was so successful in

156

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

the delivery of his mysterious theory
that Brenda decided he was quite grown
up at last. She resolved never to com-
pare him with a billy-goat again.

Of course, she couldn’t understand
what his theories were all about. But
it was obvious that fifty scientists, in-
cluding the few who were recovering
from bullet wounds, were mightily in-
terested.

It was a midday session. Louise and
Senator Stark had come in late. • They
had been out on the porch, having some
sort of disagreement, and they didn’t
look any too happy.

Bribery was the word for Senator
Stark. Bribery! The message from
Darlene Donovan left no room for
doubt. Brenda had taken the liberty
of reading the message before turning
it over to Louise, just to make sure it
wasn’t a death or other bad news.

The contents had excited her so that
she had also read it to practically every-
one who came her way — the chauffeur,
the gardeners, Teddy White, Janet the
maid, and Dr. Marcus. Janet had
fainted dead away. The doctor, on the
other hand, had acted as if it were
good news, and he had toddled off to
find the senator at once.

Then, an hour or so later, both Dr.
Marcus and Senator- Stark were im-
pressing Louise with the dangers of
insanity.

But now it appeared that Louise was
fighting for her rights and had not been
bluffed into denying the truth pi her
strange excursion.

An invisible river! What a pretty
thought! All these years, Brenda re-
alized, she had been living within sight
of it — or can one live within sight of
something invisible?

As Louise had described it, it must
be a vast, wide stream, not of water
but of millions of tiny lights. It was
ever so strange that it might be seen in

greater brilliance as Louise became
more accustomed to it. But stranger
still that most people could not see it
at all. Brenda wondered. What a
powerful thing it must be!

Now Teddy White must be talking
about the very same thing. Yes, that
was it— a stream of power like a.river —
a phenomenon of Nature. (How Teddy
could roll off those big words!) But
he didn’t describe, it in terms of color,
as Louise had done. In fact, he ad-
mitted it was nothing he had ever been
able to see.

But the papers he read from were
fairly bristling with the strange effects
of this discovery.

“These data,” he was saying, “sug-
gest the theory that the prevalence of
such phenomena have been contribu-
tory factors to the processes of evolu-'
tion.”

This must have been a terribly excit-
ing statement to make, judging by the
wonderment in the faces of the sci-
entists.

“If such invisible rivers served all
of life down through the ages, it may
be believed that they sped up the wheels
of natural selection; that they encour-
aged natural adaptions of life to climate
and symbiotic relationships of life to
life.”

Brenda whispered,. “Is that good?”
and Louise smiled and nodded.

“In time,” Teddy White went on,
“we may find more complete evidence
that these invisible currents of natural
adjustments were never stationary, but
have moved, as air currents move, but
very slowly, across the continents. This,
again, is purely hypothetical. The past
twenty-five years have netted no satis-
factory data in this . connection. But
by all odds the most striking observa-
tion

At this point Senator Stark was ob-
served making his exit.

MAN FROM THE MAGIC RIVER

157

This inspired Teddy White to call
for a general shift in tactics. After all,
his most striking observation could be
demonstrated more effectively than it
could be told.

J^IFTEEN minutes later everyone
was in the garden. The assembly
was called to order around the chess
table. Then before all amazed eyes,
scientific and otherwise, the chess-men
performed. James Stark was there,
looking very uncomfortable.

“Where’s Dr, Marcus?” Brenda said
under her breath. “Who does he want

to put in the nut-house now?”

Teddy White spoke his observations
while the men watched in silence. He
set forth no dogmatic conclusions on
these matters, but his questions were
highly stimulating! Wouldn’t it be a
tremendous development if these invis-
ible streams of power , at work in man’s
world every minute of every hour, could
gradually bring about a new dynamic
relationship between inanimate things
and man’s will?

“Whatever we have here,” said Pro-
fessor Theodore White, stroking his
beard, “I am ready to predict that the
time will come when the wisest of men,
in harmony with the forces at work
here, will be able to utilize them to
great advantage.”

The French scientist broke in with
an astonished outcry. “Look! Zare
ees someone appearing!”

Before their gaze a man came forth,
seemingly materializing out of the air
above the wooded ravine. As he took
form he was striding toward them. The
black silks of his mask and garments
were rustling. The jewels that adorned
his fan-shaped cap, his belt, and his
gloves, flashed in the noonday sun.

Louise ran out to him, took him by
the hand. Then at her request he re-
moved his mask as she presented him

to the crowd. They crowded closer.

“I have been listening,” Robert Por-
ter said in a slow, impressive voice.
“Professor White may count upon my
cooperation, for I am sure he is on the
right track. Already this invisible river
is available for man’s use. I have been
employing it for my • needs for many
years. Just now I am using it to hold
ten prisoners whom I collected, one at
a time, because they tried to stop your
conference.”

At Bob Porter’s order, ten men came
marching out of the misty air above
the ravine. They were a neglected and
, none-too-happy group. Their eyes
squinted from the sudden change into
the glare of the sunshine and the stares
of scientists. They gave no sign of
trying to escape as they were encircled
by the scientists.

“They’ve been wanting to see you,
Senator Clark,” said Bob. “They think
they should have some of the bills
you’ve been using as a bribe on Dr.
Marcus. Yes, they’ve been able to
watch you from their shady resting
places — and within the past ten minutes
they’ve seen Dr. Marcus jump into his
car and. drive off, quite contented over
his catch.”

jgOB PORTER paused. Several of
the scientists were taking notes,
some were whispering and nodding.
Theodore White strutted as proudly as
if he owned the world. Then he stopped,
attracted by the wide face and brown
bushy hair of one of the prisoners. He
doubled his fist and swung. Kerpop!

“Don’t punch me,” the skylight in-
vader yelped, backing into the circle.
“The senator’s the one ”

“Where are you going, Stark?” Bob
cried.

The handsome young senator was
striding straight toward the ravine.

“Come back!” Bob Porter yelled.'

158

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Don't chance it. Stop! If you’re not
in harmony ”

“The prisoners got away with it!”
Stark retorted.

“Not that way. I know the secrets!
Stop!” Bob bounded through the crowd
and raced toward the bank.

“Secrets! Your monopoly, do you
think? I’ll show ”

Senator James Stark’s voice faded
very suddenly. His form likewise dis-
appeared quickly as if suddenly con-
sumed.

In weeks and months to come/Louise
and Bob often wondered about that mo-
ment. It all happened so swiftly, and
it was all so final. 1 Fifty, scientists would
be embarrassed for the rest -of their
lives, trying to understand it.

Neither could Louise or her husband,
for all their acquaintance with unknown
realms, offer much, of an explanation,
except to say that some people seem
to put themselves in harmony with the
laws of the Universe, and others don’t.

THE END

Facts such as these prove that fan-
tasy is not confined only to fiction!

J T SEEMS that nothing - is impossible when
American ingenuity is applied to solve a prob-
lem — not even the reversing of the direction in
which a river shall flow.

American engineers were given the job of build-
ing the huge Serra hydroelectric development near
Sao Paulo which now supplies the most important
industrial center in Brazil with power . s The great
works consists of a group of reservoirs, dams, and
pumping stations which forces the three rivers to
flow uphill for 100 feet where they pass over a
divide and drop almost 2,500 feet to the central
generating station. This is the largest power plant
in South America and was built by the Westing-
house Electric International Company.

if if *

A/TODERN first aid practice has been traced back
^ ^ to the "Order of the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem,” founded nearly 900 years ago in Eng-
land to give aid to pilgrims on the way to the
Holy City.

* * *

PCTONE of us likes to go without a delicious cup
’ of hot Coffee in the morning, but people in
Europe have had to do so for some time.

The Dutch have attempted be meet the coffee
shortage in their country by grinding up wasted
tulip bulbs according to the Netherlands Informa-
tion Bureau. ,-They have also mixed their limited
flour supply with the ground up bulbs in order
to make enough bread to keep them going. The
Nazis have done their best to stop this practice
since tulip bulbs have a high export value. How-

ever, the Hollanders have continued the practice
since it is impossible to buy real coffee and the
little to be had on the black market costs around
$30 'a pound.

* ! * ★

CINCE March, 1942, scientists at Cornell Uni-
^ versity working in conjunction with the B. F.
Goodrich Co., have tested over 2000 different
plants as a possible source for rubber. Out of all
these tests, they found the Russian dandelion to
be the most promising source.

* * *

■\JUMEROUS cases of the successful employment
^ of blind people in war industries have been
reported and their number should be increased by
means of a new "talking” scale. This scale was re-
cently demonstrated in New York City at the
American Foundation for the Blind. As long as
the item being weighed is under the desired weight,
the scale sounds its "A” and once the item weighs
too much the scale sounds "N,” but just as soon
as the weight is correct, the scale gives a steady
buzzing tone. Using this scale, blind people can
weigh accurately as well as quickly and hold down
a responsible job in war industries.

* * if

TT IS too bad that Mussolini was born a man
instead of a fly. In his thirst for power, he
preached larger families to supply his army with
manpower. But if he had been a fly, he could
probably have had an army largfr enough to satisfy
him without any trouble. For if all the descend-
ants from just one house fly lived and reproduced

FANTASTIC— BUT TRUE

159

for one summer, there would be 2,000,000 flies pro-
duced in that time.

* * *

^TPHE use of pigeons to carry messages in time
'*■ of war is common knowledge, but a less known
fact is that the Chinese have used bees to deliver
messages during the present war.

As the lines move, Chinese spies take some bees
from a fanner’s bee hive and carry them about in
small cages. Messages are written, micro-filmed,
and then printed on extremely fine paper. They
are then attached to the bees who are released.
The bees travel at a rate of 30 or more miles per
hour back to their hives where the messages are
removed and the information put to use. The bees
are found to be just as efficient as pigeons for
short distances.

* * '*

' | 'HE war has shut off our source of the natural
flowery oils that used to come from Southern
France and serve as a base for milady’s perfume
and colognes. To a war weary people this seems
hardly a tragedy, but when one considers how
much a little cologne can do to perk up a woman’s
spirits, perhaps it does have its place.

Substitutes were hard to find until a young man
employed by the Puerto Rican station of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture suggested that the cof-
fee flowers might be used. After making several
tests, the Department announced that the flower
has an odor which they describe as being a "de-
lightful, suave fragrance.” The flowers are in
bloom almost the entire year and can be used to
make perfume without hindering the growing of
coffee.

* * *

IIIHEN the average person is asked the uses of
" ' peppermint, he answers to make candy, gum,
and take away the bad taste in medicine. But did
you know that another very important use of
peppermint is in testing steam boilers for leaks
and also to test gas masks for the army?

* * *

IITHAT awaits us after this terrible war is over?
' ' All we hear is that we may have depression,
we may have unemployment, and, in order to help
feed the world, we may have to continue rationing
for several years. But Europe will face all of these
problems plus a more terrible fate.

According to Dr. Robert E. Plunkett in his re-
port to the Bulletin of the National Tuberculosis
Association, tuberculosis will hit about 10,000,000
persons in Europe when the war is done. His ad-
vice is that we start planning now so that effective
control can be had over this terrible aftermath of
war.

* * *

T EADING a dog’s life may not be such a bad
idea when we realize how well they are fed.
According to Dr. Russell M. Wilder of the famous
Mayo Clinic, "The dog food manufactured by
American packers containing much of what they
designate as offals, is demonstrably superior in nu-

tritive value to most of the meat they can for
human food.”

He further states that humans would be a lot
healthier if they would start to eat organ meats
such as liver, kidneys, hearts, brains, etc., in addi-
tion to their diet of the muscle meats such as steak
and chops. To encourage people to eat these meats,
their point value has been set much lower than
that required for steaks. Wise housewives will take
advantage of these low-point, high-in-health meats.
* * *

A CCORDING to C. E. Scott, plant pathologist
at the California Agricultural Experiment
Station, if you use tobacco in any form you should
be careful around tomato plants. Mosaic, a to-
bacco disease, is very easily contracted by tomato
foliage that is touched by workers using tobacco.
Once the disease gets started, it is spread from
plant to plant by the insects found in every green-
house. If you use tobacco and want to work
around tomato plants, f be sure you wash your
hands with a strong soap first.

* * *

Tj'EW people benefit by war, but our present war
•*' with Japan has proved a life-saver to the
whales living in the antarctic regions.

Each year the Japs would send out their whal-
ing fleets and kill more than 10,000 whales. The
Japs were as merciless killers of whales as they are
of humans. They were the only nation that re-
fused to sign the international agreement for the
conservation of whales.

The only whalers that now operate in the ant-
arctic are those of the United Nations and they
adhere strictly to the agreement.

* * *

IF YOUR neighbor can’t get enough bottle nip-
pies to feed the baby tell her not to fret too
much for they have gone to war in at least one
war plant.

This company manufactures airplanes and their
engine department has the distinction of being the
largest user of nursing bottle nipples in the world.
These nipples are used to cover small openings in
the engines to keep all foreign matter out while
they are being assembled.

* * *

f\ID you ever hear of a milk suit? Well, you
can’t buy one now but it won’t be long if
the research scientists of the Department of Agri-
culture have anything to say about it. After many
years they have been successful in producing syn-
thetic wool fibers from milk casein.

Chemists of the western regional laboratory have
worked with wheat gluten and from it they have
been able to produce synthetic fibers. The only
drawback is that thus far they have found no use
for the wheat starch that composes the by-prod-
uct. Until they do, the process is not commer-
cially profitable, but you may rest assured that it
won’t be long before this situation is remedied and
that suits made from milk and wheat will be the
latest fashion.

ILLUSTRATED BY PVT. VIRGIL FINLAY

tfrsspdl bird women who
gbar§$@d le? human blloodl

C ORPORAL BILL RIGGER
ducked his head and listened to
lead spatter the deck around
him. Somewhere down the line a man
moaned in pain. The moan was fol-
lowed by an urgent cry.

“Stretcher case down here. Hurry
up. This fella’s bleeding bad.”

Corporal Rigger shivered. The
fighter plane zoonied upward again and
the pom-pom-pom of the anti-aircraft
guns followed it into the cloudy sky.
The troop carrier plowed onward as
though nothing were happening.

The corporal lifted his head slowly,
like a turtle coming out of its shell. He
stared across the billowing, spray-
flecked water of the Messina Straits.
There were ships in every direction.

The sfey was dark with planes. Pro-
tection wks gooa, but once in a while
a Jerry would dive through the screen,

drop his bombs and run for it.

They were going after the wounded
soldier. He screamed with pain as they
rolled him on to the stretcher. The
sound made Rigger flinch.

Another Jerry plane broke through
the protection screen and screamed
downward. It dropped one bomb, then
tipped over and fell into the water like
a winged duck. A smoke trail followed'
it down, and hung above the water long
after the plane; was gone.

Rigger drew his helmet down tightly.
He wished to hell that he could go be-
low decks. It would be nasty down
there, but at least he. wouldn’t have to
watch what was going on. This was
like sleeping without covers. A fel-
low had a false feeling of safety with
blankets drawn tightly to his chin. Be-
ing out of sight below decks would be
like that.

The trip was getting hotter than a
seven-day tour of Hades. He saw red-
faced Private Don Ranee struggling
toward him through the crowd. Ranee
was stumbling over everyone in sight,
trying to keep his feet under him on
the rolling deck. He crouched at Rig-
ger’s side.

“Ain’t this a hell’.va mess, Corporal?”

Rigger nodded.

“If they keep us out here long
enough, the beach will look so good
we’ll tear through the whole German
army to capture a hunk of it.”

Ranee nodded his head vigorously.
It was getting pretty noisy. The battle-
wagons up ahead were lobbing heavy
stuff into shore positions. Half a dozen
P 38’s and a lot of Jerry fighters were
after each other directly above Rigger’s
head. Between the roar of shells,
Ranee managed to make himself heard.

“I been thinking,” he said. “Not
that there’s any chance of it; but I got
a couple letters for the folks — just in
case.”

Attracted by the beckoning women, the sailori turned their boat shoroward

161

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

His head dropped a little.

“Wonder — if anything went wrong —
you’d mind taking care of my Admail
department?” ,

He removed two letters from his
pocket; and passed them to Rigger. Rig-
ger’s hand was shaking when he took
them but he didn’t give a damn who
noticed it. He didn’t feel a damned bit
brave about what was coming.

“You aren’t going to get hit, Ranee,”
he said. “They’ll take you for a cow
and try to capture you with a rope.”

Ranee chuckled.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “If they
get you first, I’ll come back for the let-
ters. Don’t take any wooden centesi-
mi.”

He turned and started to work his
way back through the crowd of soldiers.
Bill Rigger shrugged. How much longer
would the trip last? How long would
they last?

Someone dug an elbow into his ribs.

“Duck — it’s a heavy one!”

He leaned forward, still sitting cross-
legged, his face close to the deck. He
wanted to wriggle into the helmet, hide
his entire body under it. Suddenly the
deck seemed to expand under him, and
blow wide open. He felt himself be-
ing lifted into the air; and in a de-
tached sort of way he wondered what
had happened. He didn’t pass out. It
was like watching someone else being
blown high in the air, and dropped over-
board. bio pain — no fear.

'JpHE transport was gone. The sky
was clear of planes. Rigger felt
himself sinking again, and struggled
wildly to get fresh air into his lungs.
Waves rolled over his head and he held
his breath. It seemed hours before he
came to the top, again. This time it
wasn’t so bad. He didn’t try to fight,
but accepted the coo], green water as a
matter of course. It was better than

being ripped apart by high explosive
stuff. -He knew vaguely that he was
drowning, but it didn’t seem to frighten
him greatly.

Then, as he came up for the second
time, a terrible fear gripped him.

Three times and you’re out.

The meaning of the words rolled
back to him. Words spoken in boy-
hood days. 1} you’re drowning, three
times and you’re out . Then he started
to fight back. To struggle against the
huge merciless beast, the sea. He
threshed around, swinging his arms,
kicking savagely. The waves knocked
the wind out of him.

An Army doesn’t wait for a soldier.
Corporal Rigger realized that, at this
moment, he was important only to him-
self. Now his breathing was more even.
He paddled easily with both hands. The
chill of the water gradually deadened
the feeling in his arms and legs.

Five minutes passed. The old fear
came back. He didn’t have a chance.
His teeth chattered and his arms were
numb to the shoulders. Was it worth
fighting for? He’d have to give up
sooner or later. His heart was pound-
ing like a hammer. The strain was
terrific. He took a last desperate look
around. As far as he could see* dark
waves scudded before the wind. The
sky was cloudy and pungent with
smoke. Here, an army had passed, and
left him in its wake.

Perhaps it had left something for
him to cling to. He started to swim
with all the strength that remained in
him. A cramp seized his arm, and
gritting his teeth against the pain, he
twisted in the water and tried to move
slowly ahead with the other. He was
like the Jerry plane that wls knocked
from the sky. Soon his body would go
out of control, turning and twisting
slowly toward the boftpfn.

Something was bobbing on the sur-

BURY ME DEEP

163

face ahead of him. He struck out
bravely, hopefully, toward it. Then
tears welled into his eyes.

It was an apple. Nothing else — just
a small, round apple.

Bill Rigger hadn’t asked for food.
He asked only for life.

He reached angrily, clutching the bit
of fruit in his palm. He lifted it, swear-
ing loudly, and tried to throw it away
with his last bit of strength. It was
Rigger’s last gesture of defiance toward
life. He couldn’t let go of the apple.
As his fingers held it, a strange, inex-
plainable warmth coursed through him.
It was like a slight, warming electric
shock. A shock that made him sud-
denly vibrant and alive once more.

He didn’t want to fight. He had no
thought of death. His eyes closed and
his tired body shuddered and relaxed.
Coporal Rigger felt soothing, restful
water closing over him.

J^ILL RIGGER thought he had been
dreaming. He floated on the sur-
face of a calm sea. The water rippled
slowly against his body. It was crystal
clear, and by rolling over, he could stare
down at the sandy bottom and watch
tiny fish as they darted around beneath
him.

He still held the apple firmly in his
hand. Once he tried to bite it, as he
was growing hungry. It was hard as
polished brass, and painted to represent
perfect fruit. Rigger hadn’t had time
to think about the situation he faced.
The transition had been too abrupt. He
wasn’t even sure that he was alive. This
sun-warmed sea might be in another
life. He floated on the water without
effort. Somehow he credited that to
the apple, for it was his possession of
the apple that had changed things so
much.

An hour — or was it more? — had
made a great change in his thoughts.

Could a magic apple make a stormy
sea calm? Could it keep him afloat?

He wondered if there was any chance
of rescue.

He had hardly accepted that thought,
when a tiny black speck appeared on
the horizon. He watched it eagerly,
afraid it would fade away.

What had happen d to Don Ranee
and his buddies? Had they managed
to land an establish a beach-head? Per-
haps he’d know soon. The boat was
growing larger, and as it came toward
him, Rigger felt a queer uneasiness
growing within him.

Things weren’t so right, after all.
Somewhere, somehow, a page in history
had been torn from the book, and

J '

pasted back in the wrong place. Bear-
ing down upon him was a square-sailed,
ancient Phoenician galley. He watched
it with widening eyes, seeing the clean,
flashing sweep of the oars as they rose
and fell in perfect unison. Water glit-
tered from them and dripped back into
the sea. The galley reminded Rigger
of a model he had constructed in high
school history class.

Even the history book description
came back to him vividly.

“The galleys were propelled by slaves
who handled the oars. There were
sometimes more than five banks of
them. The sail was square , and rigged
on a single mast. The Phoenicians were
masters of the sea for many centuries”

But that was William Rigger — tenth
grade history class — U.S.A. Was this
a dream? If it were not for the war,
he would assume that some millionaire,
living on the Italian coast, had spent a
fortune on this reincarnation of the
past. But people weren’t doing things
like that now. The Mediterranean was
a war-field. It was being plowed by
the prows of fighting ships. There was
no place for dreamers on its stormy
surface.

164

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

But the galley wasn’t of dream stuff.
It swept in dose. The oars hesitated in
mid-air, as though waiting the com-
mand to fly again. Men became visible
on the deck. The galley was richly
maroon in color with new yellow rails
and deck. The stern was high, built
to run with a stormy sea.

The craft drifted swiftly, then lost
speed and sulked along-side. A lean,
bearded man stood at the rail. He wore
a loosely fitted blue robe. His hands
were cupped to his lips.

“You drift upon the water like a god
who is not afraid of drowning. By the
grace of Melkart, swim this way, will
you?”

Rigger realized that he must look
very odd, stretched out as though he
were on a couch, watching the galley
with dreamy eyes. He struck out to-
ward the ship, swam under the shadow
of the oars and grasped a rope that hit
the water near him. Drawing himself
up, hand over hand, he reached the
rail and leaped to the deck.

Now the apple was safe in his pocket,
for he had a feeling that to remain safe,
he must keep it near him. He dripped
like a bottomless bucket. His clothing
was gone, except for torn shirt and
pants. Now that he had been rescued,
and by such a strange company, he felt
a strange weakness 'coming over him.
Worse than the weakness was his fear
that this crazy existence was only be-
ginning, that fate was playing a deeper,
more significant game.

Rigger appraised the man before him
carefully. The stranger might be mer-
chant or prince. He definitely wasn't
acting the part. Nor was he alone.
From all parts of the ship, others came
running. Most of them might, had they
been dressed differently, have fitted
nicely into Rigger’s platoon. They
looked hard and well-cured by the wind
and sea. Their clothing was good, con-

sisting of brightly colored jackets, wide-
bottomed trousers, and boots.

''JpHE captain, for it seemed to be he
who had ordered Rigger aboard,
walked completely around the American
before he spoke again.

“You are neither curly-topped Greek
nor haughty Roman.”

Several of his friends chuckled at
this remark.

“You could hardly have floated here
from the shore of our own land.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose
thoughtfully, and sniffed.

“In the name of the god Melkart, I
don’t see how you floated here from
anywhere”

This speech was greeted with loud
sounds of merriment. From below the
deck, the loud crack of a whip sounded.
Several voices shouted in unison. The
galley leaped forward as the oars
churned the water once more. The
group around Rigger had grown, until
men of all classes stared at him in open
delight. The captain was giving a great
show at the new-comer’s expense.

Rigger realized that he must make
the best of the situation, at least until
he understood what was happening. He
forced a smile,

“I’m from the United States,” he
said. “I was thrown off a troop carrier
and managed to stay afloat until you
picked me up.”

The captain was plainly confused and
a little angry at Rigger’s explanation.

“United State? Troop carrier? Are
you a spy, by any chance?” His voice
became gruff with suspicion. “If you
are, remember that we Phoenicians are
still the power of the sea. We pay
homage to no man, unless his trireme
overhauls and sinks this galley. I, Acko
Sideon, fear no man. I bow only to
Melkart.”

Rigger didn’t have an idea in the

BURY ME DEEP

165

world who Melkart was, or what Acko
Sideon expected of him. He did know
that until he. was in a better position to
argue, he must win the captain’s friend-
ship.

“I, too,” he said with all the humble-
ness he could muster, “am a worshipper
of Melkart.”

At once the faces about him were
wreathed in smiles. Acko Sideon
grasped his hand slapped him on the
shoulder.

“A Phoenician, and lost at sea? You
sail from Tyre? Tell me quickly, with
what galley? Perhaps I know the
master.”

AH eyes were on Rigger. Tyre? He
grasped at that one clue and tried to
remember his history. Bits of it were
buried deep in his inner mind.

“Tyre — and Sidon , two powerful cit-
ies of the Phoenicians that rose to pow-
er together. Tyre grew to a position of
eminence which it kept for many cen-
turies "

“I sailed from Tyre many months
ago,” he lied. “We were tossed by a
stormy sea and our galley was wrecked.
I drifted on a makeshift raft, and only
today it sank beneath me.”

Acko Sideon nodded impatiently.

“Go on,” he urged. “Who was the
master?”

Rigger gave up. He had hoped that
Sideon would be easily satisfied. How
could he go on answering questions,
when he was doomed to be caught soon-
er or later. He knew nothing of the
city or the people of Tyre, if in truth
such a place still existed.

“Go on,” Sideon shouted. “Your
tongue is not tied.”

“I didn’t know the master of the
ship,” Rigger said. He saw immedi-
ately that he couldn’t have said any-
thing that could have hurt him more.
The men about him scowled and looked
at each other significantly. Acko

Sideon rubbed his nose thoughtfully
and a crafty expression came into his
eyes.

“So! You didn’t know the master?
You know only that you were wrecked,
and rescued by me?”

He grasped Rigger’s arm and twisted
him savagely around.

“Perhaps you are a debtor? Perhaps
you are an escaped slave?”

Bill Rigger’s temper had been fanned
white hot. He jerked away suddenly,
and his shoulders straightened.

“Cut the comedy,” he said. “I don’t
like being pushed around.”

Sideon’s expression was a mixture of
anger and cunning. He decided that
his reasoning was good. Here was a
debtor, a galley slave, and a strong one.

“You act as though you had never
felt the lash of the whip,” he said calm-
ly. “How long have slaves been al-
lowed to speak so boldly?”

Rigger scanned the angry faces that
ringed him in, decided he didn’t have a
chance, and, without warning, lashed
out furiously. His fist connected with
Acko Sideon’s precious nose, and with
deep satisfaction, he felt flash and car-
tilage give under the impact of the blow.

Rigger ducked quickly and tried to
fight his way out of the deadly ring of
men that immediately closed in upon
him. It was useless. A dozen arms
reached at once. He watched, with a
nicely balanced sense of justice, as Acko
Sideon folded up on the deck. Then
something clipped him a powerful blow
on the side of the head and he passed
out cold.

TRIGGER tasted something wet and
v spicy against his lips. Voices were
building up in volume somewhere near
him. It was like coming out from under
ether, as when he once spent a month
at a base hospital in North Africa. He
swallowed and tried to keep from chok-

166

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ing. He opened his eyes.

The heat was intense, and the stench
of unwashed bodies made him gasp. It
was dark, and his back ached badly.

“The slave has revived. His back
looks strong. Put him on the bench,
where we can use strong backs.”

Rigger looked around slowly.' He
had been stripped of every ounce of
clothing, and was lying on the rough
planking of the hold. Two men jerked
him to his feet. Then he understood
what the smell had been. Knew what
they planned to do with him.

He was below the deck of the galley.
In the eerie half light, he saw row upon
row of rough benches stretching the full
length of the galley. The benches rose
one upon the other, so that dozens of
slaves, five men to an oar, could work
together.

They were a motley collection, most
of them black, stripped and gleaming
with sweat. The boatswain and his
crew moved slowly up and down the
benches, applying their whips constant-
ly, with varying results. The oars
moved in rhythm. Each man came
forward, rose to his feet and sank back
with a groan, his full weight against
the oar.

Rigger staggered weakly between two
men, and was pushed upward to one
of the top benches. They threw him
down beside a huge blackamoor, twisted
a ring of iron about his ankle and
turned the key.

“Make the oar a part of your broad
back,” one of them shouted. “Don’t
fight against it or you’ll feel the caress
of the whip.”

Still dazed, Rigger didn’t understand.
His hand touched the oar and fell away.
He tried hard to grasp it. The other
five slaves were drawing at it steadily,
more frightened than ever at being the
object of special attention.

Rigger heard a hard laugh behind

him. The long whip slashed a strip of
flesh from his shoulders. He cried out
in pain.

“Ha! What sort of slave is this?”

The whip snaked out once more, mak-
ing a bloody X across his back. This
time he knew he must do something to
escape the pain. He grabbed the oar
as it- swept back and tried to fit his
body movements to it.

The man with the whip chuckled and
moved away. Rigger continued to pull
at the oar. Fifteen minutes passed,
then twenty. Sweat poured from his
naked body. Then, because he had
been toughened by long training, the
task became simpler.

He glanced at the blackamoor and
found the big man grinning at him. His
teeth were very white and even. There
was great respect in the black’s round
eyes.

“You get tired, Master, you ride the
oars,” the slave whispered. “Santo
strong enough for both of us. You too
fine a man for this.”

Rigger didn’t dare to answer. The
boatswain’s eyes were upon him. The
whip was poised to lash out again. He
continued to row with all his strength.

Gradually the pull on his muscles be-
came too great. He tried to keep up,
but he couldn’t. Two hours, as close
as he could guess, had passed since he
was thrown into the hold. It was as
though he had been here for years. He
wondered how long they had to row
before they were allowed to rest.

He chanced a look at the boatswain
and saw that the man was occupied.
He turned to the blackamoor.

“How — long — before we — rest?”

The words jerked out between
strokes. The black slave grinned a
little.

“Sometimes twenty hours, Master,”
he admitted. “You rest — ride oar.
Santo will pull harder.”

BURY ME DEEP

167

Rigger was filled with the desire to
cry like a baby. Twenty hours ? His
body wasn’t hardened for slave labor.
These slaves had spent months, some
of them years, hidden in this murky
suburb of hell.

Gradually, not because he wanted
to, but because his strength was gone,
he leaned on the oar and “rode” it as
Santo urged him to do. The extra
weight meant nothing to the giant black.
His shoulder muscles and biceps swelled
and glistened in the lamp light. He
never complained, and only aroused
Rigger when the whips came close.

Santo had accepted Rigger as master
and not as slave. Later, Rigger realized
that Santo had saved his life on the
galley. Now, he had only the strength
to move backward — forward — back-
ward; his throat was dry and his eyes
were on. the powerful, sweating figure
at his side.

Santo was a slave. He had always
served; and now, in the hold of a galley,
he had found a white man who appreci-
ated his servitude.

O' OW many hours he had spent in the
hold of the galley, Bill Rigger
couldn’t guess. One torturous, half-
awakening minute followed another.
He worked when he could, and only to
escape the lash of the whip. The re-
mainder of the time, Santo was like a
protecting wall between him and the
rest of the world.

Then the order came to cease rowing.
The oars halted and a deathly silence
pervaded the hold. The men leaned
forward like dead flesh and .slept with-
out moving a muscle. Bill Rigger could
not sleep. He wondered if he might be
removed from the hold.

Ten minutes passed. Then came the
boatswain’s coarse command.

“Row, you yellow-livered sons-o-
scum.”

His whip cracked out and snapped at
the ear lobe of a yellow-skinned slave.
The yellow man screamed in pain, and
grasped at the bleeding gash that was
left on the side of his head. The whip
came down again.

“Row!"

The slave, minus an ear-lobe, leaned
forward and fell into rhythm with the
rowers. For the remainder of the after-
noon the galley hesitated on its journey
many times. Rigger was convinced
they were near land. He dared not talk
with Santo. At last, when the galley
remained halted for some time, they
were given coarse bread soaked in cheap
wine. The wine was sour and, on the
bread, it resembled bloody flesh. Yet
he sucked at it eagerly and felt
strength returning to his body.

Santo wolfed down his food, then
turned to Rigger. He was grinning al-
most contentedly.

“You need not fear them now,” he
said. “They have all gone on deck.
We can talk safely.”

Rigger looked around. The slaves
were talking excitedly. The boatswain
and his men were gone.

“Thanks for being a right guy,” he
said to Santo. “You saved my life this
afternoon.”

Santo continued to grin.

“I served in Tyre and in Sidon,” he
said quietly. “You do not belong here.
Do you owe money to Acko Sideon?”
Rigger shook his head.

“Then why are you in chains? Where
do you come from?”

Rigger didn’t know how to explain.
“To begin with,” he said, “my name
is Rigger — Bill Rigger. What’s yours?”
“My name is Santo. That is the
only name I have.”

“It’s a long story, Santo,” Rigger
went on. “I don’t think you will believe
me. I can hardly believe it myself.”
Santo looked puzzled.

168

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“You are not Roman or Greek?”
“I’m Irish,” Rigger said.

Santo shook his head. He was com-
pletely baffled.

“I thought you" might be a man of
Tyre,” he said. “I am poorly educated,
and have never heard of people called
Irish.”

TT WAS a hopeless task, Rigger
thought. Yet Santo was a swell per-
son. He deserved some sort of ex-
planation.

“I came from a different part of the
world,” he said earnestly. “A world
of the future. They call it America,
and the Americans are fighting a war.
It is a war of the land and the air, and
even under the sea.”

Santo weighed every word carefully.
As Rigger spoke, Santo’s face mirrored
the bewilderment within him.

“I don’t know how I came here,”
Rigger said. “Suddenly I was drawn
from my world and dropped into yours.
Oddly enough, I seem to understand
and be able to talk your language.”
Santo was a little frightened that so
great a man had fallen into his custody.

“The god Melkart protect me for be-
ing a fool,” he said. “ You must be a
god. A god dropped from a place
where men stride in the clouds and
walk beneath the sea.”

His head bowed in respect.

“Hold everything,” Rigger protested.
“I’m no god. I’m not even a man,
compared with those who handle oars
the way you do, I told you I’m per-
fectly normal. I just don’t understand
what happened.”

Santo, however, could not overlook
the modesty of a god who accepted his,
Santo’s assistance. His head remained
bowed, , and he hoped that the god,
Rigger, would not single him out for
any special attention. Santo faced
the task of serving a god with certain

doubts in his poor mind.

One of the boatswain’s crew, a dark-
skinned man of ' Tyre, climbed swiftly
down into the hold. He ran its full
length to his own cabin. He was greatly
excited and seemed very happy.

On deck, Rigger could hear men
singing and shouting. He wondered
what was responsible for the celebra-
tion. Then a second and third man
came down the ladder. The boatswain
himself followed, swaggered half the
length of the ship and paused. He felt
suddenly that his own good fortune
should be shared with the others.

“Rest a few hours,” he shouted. “We
have dropped our anchor in the warm
waters of a magic inlet. We have seen
an island such as none of you have
ever dreamed. You are indeed unfor-
tunate for having no part in the ex-
ploration of such a place.”

Beads of perspiration stood out on
his face.

“Perhaps you wonder at the excite-
ment of the men. Acko Sideon had
given us leave to go ashore and drink
our fill of wine. There are other pleas-
ures beckoning to us.”

He turned and his smile faded into
a frown. Without further words, he
went to his cabin. He was angry, for
his fine speech had brought no tears
or moaning from the slaves.

Magic island?

Rigger shook his head. Magic ap-
ples and island. He was too confused
to know what was happening. Every
muscle in his body felt as though it
had been torn loose of flesh and lay
exposed to the air. His brain was
spinning. He wanted water. Fresh
water to help a parched throat and
aching stomach. His skin felt dry.

He watched the members of the crew
climb out of the hold. He wondered, as
they went up into the sunlight, if the
slaves were ever allowed above decks.

BURY ME DEEP

169

Then came the sound of boats scrap-
ing against the planking, and the splash
as they hit the water along-side. He
heard bits of shouted conversation as
the crew went over the side.

“They are still beckoning us. Row,
you fools! Row!”

“Lovely women. . .”

“They hold fruits aloft, begging
us ”

“It will be a feast of the gods.’'

gANTO’S eyes were bulging.

“When the master seeks, earthly
pleasures, we must await his return. It
does not happen often, but should he
be greeted too pleasantly, he may for-
get his slaves. It would not be pleasant
here in a few hours.”

Rigger shuddered. He hadn’t thought
of that Here were men, chained by
the ankle, unable to seek food. If Acko
Sideon didn’t return in a few hours,
how would they eat?

Half an hour passed and no sound
came from above. The sun warmed
the ship and gradually he forgot the
terrible odors about him, and slept,
slouched over the oar. Around him,
others relaxed for the first time in
months and snored loudly.

How many hours passed before Rig-
ger awakened, he could not guess.
Opening his eyes, he sat very still, star-
ing into the gloom. It was night. Not
a lantern was lighted. Sideon had not
returned.

Though he was still weak, some of
the strength had flowed back into Rig-
ger’s body. He was very hungry. He
tried to see beyond Santo into the dark -
ness. Then Santo was moving, leaning
close to him. He spoke in a whisper.

“Make no sound, Master. The slaves
are angry. They plan to cut the chains
and escape.”

“But they aren’t mad at me,” Rigger
insisted/

Santo’s face was just visible. He
nodded.

“Santo knows. But you are a white
man. They will be afraid you might
betray them. The less they think of
you, the easier our escape will be.”
The men all around him were talk-
ing quietly now. At the far end of the
benches, he could hear the dull scraping
sound of iron against iron.

“It is one of the old slaves,” Santo
explained. “I had forgotten, but many
weeks ago his family smuggled some
keys aboard. They stole them from a
slaver. Now he says it is time to use
the keys, and mutiny.”

The heavy clank of dropping chains
sounded closer to them. A low, vibrant
voice offered thanks to Melkart, and
bare feet started to hit the boards
under the benches.

Rigger waited with every bit of pa-
tience he could muster. This might be
his single chance to escape. But where
to? He shook his head Impatiently. No
use worrying. At least, once free of
the hold, he could think more clearly
“They will fight over the food and
wine,” Santo was whispering. “They
know little of freedom. They will be-
come violent with drink.”

A voice grunted out of the darkness
behind Rigger. He saw Santo reach
eagerly and knew that the blackamoor
had the precious keys. Others hands
were reaching toward Santo.

Santo slipped the key swiftly into
Rigger’s metal ring and freed him.
Then, releasing himself, he sent the
keys speedily on their way.

Rigger staggered to his feet, stepped
over the bench and dropped to a cat-
walk. Santo followed and they jumped
to the bottom of the hold. They found
the ladder and swarmed up' it, fighting
their way with the mob of blacks. On
deck, Rigger found himself bathed in
a cool, tropical breeze.

170

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

The sight above decks was unpleas-
ant/ but he could not bring himself to
blame the slaves. They had been
treated as animals, and they reacted as
such. Chests of clothing, food and
wine had been torn open and scattered
wildly. From their actions, he knew
that they would drink too freely and
trouble would soon start.

“Hurry after me.” Santo drew him
swiftly along the rail. “Trouble will
come when they have discovered that
there is no more booty to find,”

'^'HEY went along a narrow passage
and into a tiny cabin that remained
well hidden in the shadows. Santo
barred the door swiftly. , He turned to
the wall, and lighted a tiny lantern.
Rigger stared about him. The cabin
was hardly over eight feet square. It
was so well furnished that it evidently
belonged to a man of great importance.

“You wonder why the others have
missed this place,” Santo said. “It is
Acko Sideon’s cabin. Many years ago
he was my master; I was a free servant
on his galley. I displeased him and
he threw me into the hold.”

He moved across the cabin and threw
open a big sea-chest. He started toss-
ing clothing out on the floor.

“Choose what you need,” he said.
“We must escape at once. When they
are overcome by wine, all white men
will look the same to them.”

“Look here, Santo,” Rigger said awk-
wardly. “You don’t have to do anything
else for me. They are your friends.
If you team up with me, ; they’ll kill
you too.”

Santo shook, his head.

“I have always served white mas-
ters,” he said. “These slaves will steal
the ship. They are not sea-faring men
and cannot follow a straight course.
Soon another galley will overhaul them
and they will become the property of a

new master. It is always that way.”
“But — where can we go?” Rigger
had chosen a pair of brown trousers,
brown sash and gray jacket lined with
wool. He donned them quickly.

“There is an island close by,” Santo
said grimly. “Perhaps we will be play-
ing directly into Acko Sideon’s hands,
but there is no other choice. It’s the
only way left open.”

He looked Rigger over quickly, hav-
ing found trousers that he could force
over his own legs.

“Find boots near the door,” he said.
“Carry them while we swim.”

They moved silently back along the
corridor, aware of the growing volume
of sound ahead of them. Out on deck
once more, Rigger saw that Santo was
right about the slaves. Some of them
had hoisted anchor. Others tried inex-
pertly to run up the square sail at-
tached to the yard on the. middle
mast. There was no wind stirring.
“Quickly, before they see us.”

Santo faded silently over the rail
and slipped down a rope to the water.
Rigger followed. The boots were tied
about his neck with a bit of twine. He
turned to the black man and saw San-
to’s toothy, friendly grin in the dark-
ness.

“If you hold your ear close to the
water you will hear the surf.”

Rigger tried it. From the east came
a faint splash-splash of water against
rocks.

“Swim slowly and . save your
strength,” Santo cautioned him.

He kicked himself gently away from
the ship, floating on his back. Then,
turning over slowly, he followed Santo
with long, smooth strokes.

He looked back once to see ghostly
figures wandering about the galley’s
deck, like lost souls. He pitied these
slaves. They would sail the ship away
from the island. Then, when the first

BURY ME DEEP

171

thrill of being free had worn off, they
would be without a leader, or knowl-
edge to shift for themselves.

' JpHE distance to the island wasn’t
great. They were in the surf be-
fore Rigger realized it, and staggering
forward over sand and rocks to the
stony beach. Santo cautioned him in a
low voice to be careful of making more
noise than was absolutely necessary.
They sat in the shelter of a boulder
while Rigger drained the boots and put
them on. Then removing their clothing
piece by piece, they wrung the water
out until they were once more warm
and nearly dry.

The land back of them was low, and
covered by groves of trees. They were,
barely visible in the darkness. A
strange eerie silence had settled over
the world into which they had come.
Not a sound came from the island.
Nothing disturbed the endless wash of
water that rolled up the beach.

“Better look around and find out
where we are before morning,” Rigger
said. “We’ll have to find a place to lie
low when the sun comes up.”

Now Santo seemed to forget that it
had been he who engineered their es-
cape. As long as Rigger needed him,
Santo gave the orders. Now he was
content to do as Rigger suggested.

They started slowly up the beach,
keeping behind boulders as much as
possible.

They rounded a point at the end of
the island. Here a grove of olive trees
grew close to the beach. Rigger mo-
tioned silently toward the grove and
Santo nodded. Rigger left the safety
of the rocks and stepped on to the sand
that stretched up toward the grove.
Something hard and brittle crushed
under his heel. It sounded like 0 a huge
nut cracking. Startled by the sound, he
looked down. Lying on the sand, where

his weight had broken it in two, was a
human skull. One empty eye socket
stared up at him. A jagged jaw bone,
only half filled with teeth, grinned
crookedly.

He jumped away as though it were a
snake. He heard Santo cry out with
fear. Then to Rigger’s horror, he saw
that the beach was covered with bones.
There was no guessing as to what kind
of broken skeletons these were. Thigh
bones — arm bones — parts of broken
ribs. They were all from human car-
casses.

Cold sweat broke out on Rigger’s
forehead. Santo was standing near
him and the blackamoor’s breath came
in rasping, frightened gulps.

“Why are Acko Sideon’s men so
silent?” Santo was trying desperately
to retain his courage. “We have not
seen a light. There have been no
sounds.”

Rigger nodded.

“Let’s get out of here now,” he said,
and moved as silently as he could up
the beach toward the olive grove, “Side-
on’s men said that there were beautiful
women begging them to come ashore.”
They reached the shadowy trees and
went in among them, feeling a little
safer once they had left the bone-
strewn sand.

“Men often hide in the branches of
trees,” Santo said. “If wild animals
are about, it will be safer.”

Rigger stared at the broad, good-
natured face, in the darkness,

“Santo, let’s not kid ourselves. Sid-
eon came ashore because women beck-
oned to him and his men. He wasn’t
killed by animals. Somehow I don’t
think it will be animals that we will
have to avoid.”

Santo nodded slowly.

“There are stories of sirens who lure
men to their deaths.”

“That’s what I was thinking of,”

172

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Rigger admitted. “We’ll hide in a
thicket tonight. We’re not going to
make Sideon’s mistake. We won’t listen
to the call of beautiful women.”

O IGGER hadn’t slept a wink. The
sun was rising above the water
in the east. It tinged the sea for
miles around with a rich, golden hue.
Acko Sideon’s galley was gone. Some-
time- before morning it. had drifted
away under the inexpert handling of
the slaves. ^

The morning grew warm and birds
started singing in the olive grove. Rig-
ger felt a little foolish, now that day
had come, over his fears of last night.
Yet, two facts remained to trouble him
and prevent him from leaving the safe-
ty of the tree.

Sideon’s -men had not returned to the
beach. Not a sound came from inland.
Secondly, the beach was strewn with
human bones. From his perch, he could
see half a dozen skulls, half buried in
the sand.

Across from Rigger, sleeping on a
heavy limb, lay Santo. Then he stirred
in his sleep, stretched, flexed his mus-
cles and opened his eyes slowly. He
stared at Rigger, then complete under-
standing came into his sleepy eyes.

“Morning chases away the many
devils of the darkness,” he said. His
lips parted in a wide grin. “Men of my
race fear darkness more than death it-
self.”

Even in the sunlight, Rigger noticed
that Santo spoke softly, almost in a
whisper. He knew that Santo was still
frightened, and only trying to act as
cheerful as he felt he should, to impress
his master.

Corporal Bill Rigger of the United
States Army was gone. He had been
lost somewhere during the past three
days. In his place remained Rigger, a
man who was lost in the labyrinth of

history. Rigger, who fought his way
toward safety and yet did not know
where safety would lead him. He faced
incident after incident for which he
could give no explanation. Yet, death
was still dogging his footsteps, and he
had no choice but to go on fighting
against it. He was as much on guard
as he would have been in a fox-hole
oh some machine-gunned Italian beach.

He ^studied the ground under the
trees. The grove stretched inland until
the trees hid his view. A silvery stream
ran toward the sea and opened into a
deep, sparkling pool of water, only a
a short distance away in the grove.

Did he dare trust himself as far as
the pool? A bath would do him good.
He looked at Santo. The black’s eyes
were on the bone-strewn beach. Santo
evidently had no intentions <?f. leaving
the tree in the daylight.

Rigger slipped silently toward the
earth. He heard Santo’s breath suck
in loudly. Stopping short, he waited.
He stared back up at Santo and saw
him pointing toward the pool. Santo’s
hand was shaking and his lips had
turned a sickly blue.

Rigger crawled silently back to his
perch and looked toward the pool.
Wading in the water, so that it covered
all but the upper part of them, were
two of the prettiest girls he had ever
seen, Their skin was dark and glisten-
ing. Their faces were oval-shaped- and
delicately framed by long, golden hair.

Rigger’s heart leaped. He realized
suddenly how lonely he was. How
lonely Acko Sideon and\his men must
have been. How eagerly they must
have rushed to these waiting girls.

For these girls were not ordinary
- fishermen’s daughters. They had been
molded as though by a master’s touch.
Yet Rigger hesitated. Why was Santo
so frightened of them? The black
hadn’t uttered a soiind. He kept on

BURY ME DEEP

173

pointing > as though he wanted Rigger
to see something that the American had
not yet noticed..

r J' , HE girls sank into the water up
to their necks. They shouted and
splashed each other, flailing the surface
with slim, shapely arms and hands.
Their sounds of merriment, drifting
upward, nearly drove Rigger mad. He
continued to stare at them, unashamed
that he was not playing fairly. He grew
angry at Santo for behaving so much
like a child.

Then the pair seemed satisfied with
their frolic. They rushed toward shore
and as the water drained away from
their flanks, fearful disgust swept over
Rigger.

From the thighs down, all resem-
blance to the human race was lost.
Their legs and feet resembled the scaly’
bony structure of monster water fowl.
Their talons glittered unsheathed on
scaly toes, and wide webs separated
each toe. The webs dug deeply into
the sand, and sent them, swiftly up
the bank into the woods. Then more
of them came. Their cries of merri-
ment grew to screams. They sounded
like vultures who have been well fed.
They had come to wash away the filthy
mess that clotted their faces and hands.

Dark, scummy blood covered the sur-
face of the pool. A dozen of them were
floundering in the water. They washed
and preened themselves like birds.

Neither of the men in the tree moved
a muscle. Now that he had seen the
whole sickening sight, Rigger felt as
awed as had Santo. Yet, these crea-
tures were animals and not too clever.
It might be possible to outwit them.

At last they were gone, shouting and
screaming up the trail arid out of sight
toward the center of the island. Rigger
made his way painfully to a place closer
to Santo. They were both afraid that

more of the creatures might come at
any moment.

“It’s clear now what happened to
Acko Sideon and his crew,” he said.

Santo nodded his head. He was too
awed to speak.

“Women — eat — flesh,” he mumbled
at last. “Human flesh.”

Rigger felt sorry for him. Never had
he seen such terror on any man’s face.

“Look here,” he said sternly. “It’s
pretty bad, I’ll admit. There’s nothing
we can do for Sideon now. The bath
in the pool evidently ended the party.
Now we’ve got to think about our-
selves. The women are cannibals and
they aren’t quite human. I don’t think,
though, that they are god-like or
blessed with any special power. There-
fore, we’ve got a chance to outwit them
and escape.”

“But — where can we go?”

Rigger shook his head.

“Damned if I know. We’re up
against a group of cunning animals.
Unlike Acko Sideon, we’ve been
warned. We’ll have to construct a raft
and get off the island at our first oppor-
tunity.”

Santo’s courage was rising. Fear
was a terrible power over Santo, but
Rigger’s presence helped him over-
come it. They had only their own poor
planning to fear. If they gave up fight-
ing, they were lost.

“We must find food, and wood for
the raft,” Santo suggested.

Rigger grinned sourly. It was bad
business, wandering around with those
bird-women on the loose. They didn’t
have much choice. You can’t eat and
build rafts while you’re sitting up a
tree.

“We can’t go to them for diet sug-
gestions,” he said.

“Perhaps, deeper into the forest,
there is fruit. These olives are too
green to eat yet.”

174 FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

Santo stared at him soberly.

“And if we meet these women
again?”

“We’ll have to chance that,” Rigger
answered. “There are two ways to die.
We can sit up here like treed squir-
rels until we starve to death, or we
can take a chance to fight our way
through.”

Santo slipped silently down the trunk
of the tree and waited for Rigger to
follow. They looked around hurriedly
and found two heavy, well-balanced
clubs. Rigger chose one for himself
and passed a twisted, knotty branch to
Santo.

“Those bird-legged beauties may
look nice from the waist up,” he said.
“But if they attack us, don’t be afraid
to crush a skull or two.”

“I will save my own bones from be-
ing picked by their delicate fingers,” he
promised.

'THEY started slowly up the trail that
A led around the pool and into the
forest. They had walked for some
distance when Rigger placed a restrain-
ing hand on Santo’s arm.

“Wait!” he said. “Did you hear
that?”

It was almost dark among the
heavy, leafy trees. They had been
forced to come a few yards at a time,
fearful that at any moment they would
stumble into a camp of the bird-women.

Santo leaned his head to one side,
listening carefully. The sound of the
surf was gone. There was only the
rustling, unhappy sound of the wind
in the trees. Then, far away, came
the thin scream of a bird. Or was it
a bird? It came again, wafted by the
wind, shrill and blood-curdling.

“They follow us,” Santo said, and
his eyes were suddenly round with holy ^
fear.

It was true, Rigger thought. The

sounds were closer now. Much closer.
He started to sprint up a short hill
toward a dense growth of oak trees.
Santo was behind him, crashing through
the low bushes.

“We’ll have to throw them off the
trail,” Rigger panted. “Speed counts
now.” j

Santo’s breath was coming hard. Both
of them knew what would" happen if
they were captured. In Rigger’s mind
was that relentless, frightful picture of
the skull that had cracked under his
boot. Of dried blood, the blood of
Acko Sideon, covering the pool with
thick scum.

They reached higher ground, and
Rigger worked his way in among the
bushes that covered the ground. Yet
they weren’t safe, even here. With un-
canny speed, the screams came closer.
It was like trying to run away from
blood-hounds.

Rigger stared back with frightened,
yet coldly appraising, eyes. There was
no place to run to now. He had to
wait — to fight it out. The skin seemed
to creep on the back of his neck and
his grip on the heavy club tightened
until his knuckles hurt.

There were three of the bird-women.
They ran swiftly, more swiftly than
anything he had ever seen. They
skimmed over the ground like ungainly
ostriches, moving so fast that their legs
jerked back' and forth like pistons.

Could he stand up to them?

Rigger looked at Santo, The women
had almost reached the blackamoor, but
Santo, now that he was cornered, stood
his ground well.

“Come on,” Rigger shouted. “We’ve
still got a chance.”

He turned to run again, then realized
that Santo hadn’t moved. He started
back toward his companion. How
would they attack? How did they
fight.

BURY ME DEEP

175

He didn’t have to wait to find out.
The foremost bird-woman was about
ten feet from Santo., She didn’t slacken
her speed and her eyes were burning
with greed and hatred. Her mouth
opened and an angry cluck-cluck sound
came from deep in her throat. With
terrific speed she launched herself into
the air feet first. Santo whirled his
club desperately and tried to avoid the
wicked spurs that drove toward his
head.

Rigger had only a . second to realize
the terrible power of those scaly legs
and needle-like spurs. He waited
breathlessly, hardly remembering that
there were two of them who had not
yet attacked.

The spurred feet struck Santo’s head
a glancing blow, but his club caught
her at the knee. The bird-woman
crumpled to the ground. Her legs had
broken squarely but the spurs had done
their job. Santo’s face and chest were
dripping with blood. His cheek was
laid wide open to the bone.

r jpHEN Rigger was in it. Another
of the creatures attacked him with
the speed of the wind. She landed in
his midriff. Fortunately, Rigger’s wind
was good. He swung the club as he had
been taught to handle the butt of a
rifle. It missed her head by inches and
glanced off her shoulder. Rigger stepped
back and aimed another blow. Before
she could get out of the way, the club
had connected with her skull and she
sank down with a muffled croak of pain.

Rigger twisted about, to find Santo
on his knees with the third bird-woman
astride his shoulders. She was raking
his sides cruelly with the spurs. Santo,
unable to rise, shook his big head slowly
from side to side. His eyes were hidden
behind a mist of blood.

Weakly, Rigger staggered toward
them. Even as he lifted the club, his

blood froze. The creature was literally
ripping Santo apart with those long,
wicked spurs.

There was no fear in Rigger now,
nor was there pity. He brought the
club down with all his remaining
strength and watched coldly as the
woman rolled over and hit the ground
with a thump. He was at Santo’s side,
helping him to his feet. They weren’t
out of danger yet. Far away, from
still deeper into the forest, came the
screams of the main horde of women.
Rigger knew Santo could never go far.
Although his own wounds hurt him
badly, he was untouched compared to
the black. Santo was weak, and worse
than that, he had been so impressed
by the strength of the attack that it
left him mentally unbalanced.

He stood before Rigger, blood run-
ning down his body, blubbering like a
child. Fear had at last penetrated his
mind so badly that he couldn’t control
himself. He had lost all power to fight,
to survive. Rigger could well imagine
the effect of these bird-monsters on so
simple a mind.

“We’ve got to get out of here fast,”
he said. “There are more of them com-
ing.”

Santo nodded his head dumbly. He
remained silent. Rigger looked down
the far side of the hill. In the late
sunlight a small stream was visible.
It came from the hills, and was partly
hidden among the trees. His eye could
follow its course until it disappeared
into a series of small gulleys.

He had an idea. It wasn’t new. It
wasn’t even very clever. At the same
time, it had worked before.

He grasped Santo’s arm.

“Follow me,” he said sternly. “And
hurry.”

He knew he should bind Santo’s
wounds, but he didn’t have time. The
bird-women were coming closer all the

176

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

time. A minute one way or the other,
and perhaps their fate would be sealed.

Santo was obeying him mechanically
and they trotted steadily toward the
stream. No need to worry yet. Their
followers were a good distance behind.
They reached the small, swiftly rolling
stream.

“Into the water,” Rigger panted.
“Follow me, and make sure you don’t
step out of the water.”

He pitied Santo from the bottom of
his heart, but they had to keep going.
If either of them faltered now, they
were both lost. He hoped that the
water trail would throw off the bird-
women. There was a fifty-fifty chance
that, without tracks to .follow, they
would go the wrong way.

Could they smell the blood from San-
to’s wounds? Would it run in the water
and betray them? He thought not.
The black was strong, and. the wounds
on his face 'and sides were clotting.

They were forced to move more
slowly. The water was knee deep and
the current ran swiftly against their
knees. The icy water chilled them
both, but seemed to revive Santo a little.

The cries of the bird-women per-
sisted, and Rigger knew they vhad
reached the stream, now a good half
mile below, 1 where he had entered the
water. He went on, his teeth chatter-
ing, legs numb. He prayed that they
would go in the opposite direction.
They would think that he and Santo
were trying to escape to the sea, from
the same direction they had come.

Then the sounds of the pack grew
faint and it was like escaping the blade
of a knife and being allowed to breath
again.

He must take care of Santo' now.
The blackamoor was hurt even more
badly that he had first thought. There
was a tiny dirt valley ahead, where the
stream had cut deep into the soft earth.

Grassy banks were undermined so that
they made an excellent hiding place.
He looked back at the staggering figure
of Santo. Blood had dried around his
mouth and his teeth were red with it.
His cheek was half gone.

QNCE hidden under the hanging
banks, he helped Santo find a com-
fortable spot on the sand. -He cleansed
the wounds with fresh water and bound
them tightly with^bits of his shirt and
sash. All this time Santo stared up
at him with dumb, worshipping eyes.

Rigger looked down and smiled. He
had never felt so much like a small boy
in his life. There was a lump as big
as an egg in his throat.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “They
won’t find us here. We’ll find a way
out.”

Now that he had relaxed, two of
Santo’s wounds started to drain badly.
The bandages were soaked in blood.
Rigger was growing desperate. There
was nothing else he could do. He kept
bringing water, and forcing it into San-
tos bleeding, shapeless mouth.

Santo pointed a mournful finger at
himself and shook his head slowly from
side to side.

Rigger tried to act cheerful.

“We’lL both get out of this mess,” he
said. “You’ll feel better by morning.'’

Santo smiled sadly and shook his
head again.

“Santo be dead in morning.”

His voice was so low that Rigger
could hardly hear it. He bent closer
toward the bloody lips. A frightened
shudder suddenly swept over Santo’s
body. He stared wildly about, as though
seeking someone else.

“Bury Santo deep!” he implored.

Rigger remembered the skull — the
blood on the pool.

He knew what Santo feared most.
He couldn’t deny the blackamoor’s

BURY ME DEEP

177

fears. They were silent for a long time.
The moon came up and the night grew
warmer. Santo’s voice came again,
with all the intense pleading of a child.
“Bury Santo deep ”

Rigger knew he had to promise, and
yet it was like admitting that all hope
was gone. That he, Rigger, expected
Santo to die. In truth, he did; but
he hated to admit it even to himself.
It was the one last request of a man
who had served him and saved his life,
only for the pleasure of serving.

“Deep, Santo 1” he promised in a
voice broken with emotion. “Under
stone, where they’ll never find you.”
Santo’s whole body relaxed and he
smiled softly. Rigger watched the last
quiver of life pass from the spent, tired
body. Then, with tears rolling down
his cheeks, he started scooping a grave
in the sand with tired, torn hands.

JglLL RIGGER crouched behind the
wall of stones that had been vom-
ited up by some long forgotten volcano.
He watched the scene on the beach
with' narrowed, appraising eyes. He had
left Santo’s grave three nights ago, and
followed the stream to where it emptied
into the sea. He had drunk fresh
water and eaten Some partly ripened
olives. He felt better, but the memory
of Santo still clung to him like a cloak
of mourning. In spite of the sun and
the sparkling sea, he had been unable
to shake loneliness from him.

In the distance, a galley was moving
slowly toward the island.

From the forest, the bird-women had
come to lure more sailors to their death.
They had chosen a spot on the beach
where stones, hid the lower parts of
their bodies. He realized that the smil-
ing faces, the bared torsos, must be
tremendously appealing from the sea.
The women , were waving and smiling
pleasantly. The galley swept in slowly,

driven by a languid breeze.

But now Rigger became alarmed.
Even the bird-women who waited so
eagerly for blood, seemed puzzled.

The galley had not dropped anchor.
It continued to sail toward the rocky
beach. The oars were lifted but . the
winds in the sails drove it' in steadily.
No sound came from the bird-women.
This was not a time for their screams
of merriment. This was time for their
gentle art of luring men to death. Rig-
ger shuddered. There were over a hun-
dred of them here.

Even though it meant his own death,
he knew he must somehow warn the
men on that galley. He couldn’t let a
hundred men, perhaps more, meet
death because of his selfishness.

If he could collect his strength for
a dash into the surf, perhaps his cries
would reach them. He smiled grimly.
If they didn’t hear, at least the bird-
women would have to betray them-
selves to capture him.

But what was wrong aboard the ship?

Before the wind, the galley had
driven to less than a quarter mile off-
shore. It came ahead steadily. Fasci-
nated by what was taking place, Rigger
remained in his hiding place among the
rocks, forgetting his plan.

The galley was very close now. It
hit a sand bar and the bow pushed out
of the water. The galley seemed about
to tip, then righted itself slowly.

There was no sign of men on deck.

The bird women knew now that their
quarry was where they could reach it.
They leaped over the rocks and rah
into the surf. They splashed into deep
water and paddled with powerful,
webbed feet. In a moment the beach
was deserted. Rigger continued to stare
with horror-stricken eyes as they
reached the galley and swarmed over
the rail.

Then he knew suddenly why the gal-

178

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ley had hit the bar;, knew why the oars
had, been idle.

This was Acko Sideon’s galley, and
the stiffened, black bodies that were
being pushed over the rail, were the
starved slaves who had tried to sail
away the night he and Santo swam
ashore.

For the next half-hour, he tried to
ignore the scenes that took place near
his hiding place. They came back,
carrying their stiff booty, seemingly as
happy with it as they had been with
living men.

Even Rigger, who was schooled in
the horror of modern war, could not
face the things that happened on that
beach. When, after hours of screaming
and chattering, they returned to their
forest, he still dared not look at what
they had left behind. There would be
more skulls on the beach now. And
later, probably the white bones would
pile even higher, as other galley cap-
tains gave men shore leave.

'JpHIS was a date with fate that he,
Rigger, was keeping. The ship had
returned, perhaps for him. At least it
presented a manner of escape. He was
thankful for that, and for the powers
that protected him from the fate of Acko
Sideon’s crew. He swam with long,
powerful strokes, letting the water roll
off his sides and cool his tired back.

It Had been a long time coming, this
velvet night that hid him from the
shore. He reached the galley and
grasped a tattered, torn rope with which
he' pulled himself aboard. The deck
was empty of life but littered with the
filth that starving men leave behind
them. The stench in the hold was so
bad that he didn’t attempt to enter it.
He moved automatically toward the
high poop-deck.

Into his heart came a new hope. He

had noticed that since sundown, the
wind had changed-, and was blowing
stiffly toward the sea. The sail had
filled and the, timbers below deck
groaned and shifted under the strain.

If the galley had not buried its. bow
too deeply into the sand bar, the wind
might force it back into deeper water.
He considered this, and realized that
he knew little of how it could be con-
trolled, evert if such good fortune came
to him.

He wandered around the deck at the
high stern of the craft, remembering
that these galleys were built in this
manner so that they might run before
a high wind without being pooped by
a large wave.

The steering rudder was simple
enough. A long tiller was connected
to it, so that one man might, in a fairly
calm sea, steer the galley.

Satisfied that he was ready, should
the wind work in his favor, Rigger
waited for it to freshen. Below him,
the groaning timbers told him that the
galley was trying to break free. The
keel shifted occasionally, throwing the
deck over at a sharp angle.

Still,' no sign of. a complete separation
from the bar was evident. Rigger was
growing angry at his own helplessness.
It might be better to depend on a raft.
If the wind didn’t grow powerful during
the night, he could drift away from the
island before daybreak. He started to
work, and in an hour had constructed
a fair-sized raft from timbers and casks
he found about the wrecked deck.

He managed to work the raft across
the deck to a spot where he could tip
it into the water. There wasn’t a drop
of food or fresh water with which to
provision it.

The wind increased while he worked
on the raft, and he hurried back to
the tiller, ready to work the v rudder
around, and straighten his course. The

BURY ME DEEP

179

galley remained fast in the sand.

It must have been close to midnight.
Rigger stood in the light of an overcast
moon, leaning dejectedly on the tiller.
Then his heart skipped a beat.

Something — someone — moved, far-
ther down the deck.

He dropped out of sight behind an
empty cask. He could see them clearly
now. Two bird-women were standing
there. They seemed to sense his pres-
ence, yet he was sure they hadn’t seen
him. How had he missed them? They
must have been in the hold, enjoying
the night in their own manner. He
shivered.

There was more anger than fear in
his body. White-hot anger that chased
horror and fear from him and made
him want to put these two creatures
through torture to avenge Santo.

Yet he knew he could not hope to
face them without a weapon and stand
a chance of living.

The hold. There were whips there.
Whips that had cut and torn at his own
flesh. He started to creep cautiously
along the deck. The women had gone
to the rail. They were muttering to
each other apparently reluctant to leave
the galley. Rigger thought he could
guess why. There were more dead
men below deck.

He must allow nothing to stop him
now. He reached the ladder, and went
down it swiftly. At the same time a
gust of wind hit the ship and it lurched
back and slid into deep water. At once
he felt the full force of the wind as it-
filled the sail and drove the galley out
to sea.

He started to search in the darkness,
as he remembered where the whips had
been hung on hooks beneath the bench-
es. His fingers closed around a thick
handle and he grasped it firmly .in his
right hand.

Here was power. It felt good in his

palm. He had seen the things handled
and knew how to swing one for the best
results.

But now the galley was swinging
around wildly with no one to control
its direction. He had to get back to
the tiller. To right the ship and put
open water between him and the island.

j^IGGER reached the top of the lad-
der and breathed deeply of the
fresh air. The bird-women were run-
ning up and down near the shore side
of the ship. Their screams of fright
made him grin. They didn’t like to see
their precious island fading away.

Rigger wasn’t afraid now. He reached
the tiller and threw his weight against
it. The wind blew his hair out straight
and whipped against his naked body.
Slowly the ship came around and put
its high stem against the growing
waves.

Then he knew that the women had
seen him. They were deathly silent,
puzzled. They moved toward him cau-
tiously, forgetting their own plight,
knowing only that a man was near
them. He pretended not to notice.

The first was only ten feet away now,
slinking along in the darkness. His
hand gripped the whip handle and he
tensed for the blow. Rigger pivoted
and a snarl of hate parted his lips.
His right arm bulged as the whip
snapped out and wrapped around the
knees of the bird-woman. The lash
cracked like a rifle shot, winding
around and around the skinny, scaly
legs.

He pulled it toward him with all his
weight and she fell to the deck. The
lash unrolled and came back to him.
The scream of the bird-woman didn’t
effect him as the whip darted out again
and sang around her neck. Her scream
was cut short as life jerked out of her.

He drew the whip back slowly, star-

180

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

ing down at the body on the deck. All
emotion was drained out Of him. He
had hot murdered. He had cleansed
the world of something corrupt and
unspeakable.

The other bird-woman retreated
swiftly to the shadows of the cabins.

“That’s for Santo,” Rigger said un-
steadily. “And for Acko Sideon and his
men.”

He couldn’t leave the tiller, or he
would have pursued the other flesh-
eating monster. Each time he turned
away, the rudder twisted over and the
galley started to turn broadside to the
wind.

The moon was gone now and the
sky was black. The other woman made
no attempt to attack him. She stood a
short way down the deck, her wolfish,
burning eyes on him. She clutched
some small object in her hand. He
strained his eyes to see what she was
holding.

She held the magic apple Rigger had
found floating on the sea.

But how had she gotten it? Then
he remembered that he had been
stripped of his clothing when he came
aboard Sideon’s ship. The apple was in
his pocket. She had found it while
looting the ship.

Suddenly Rigger knew that he must
have that apple. It had saved him
once before, and brought him into this
world of the past. Perhaps it would
take him out again. But how could
he get it?

The wind had turned into a gale and
the sea frothed and whipped at the
sides of the galley. As long as it ran
with the wind, the galley would remain
afloat. If he left the tiller, the ship
would twist around and be swamped
almost at once. The woman kept her
distance. She was trying to eat the
metal apple. He saw her grimace when
she found it was only an imitation.

Yet she continued to nibble at it,
not realizing that it was of no use to
her.

The storm grew steadily worse. Rig-
ger clung to the tiller grimly. He had
little time to note the bird-woman’s
movements, and he shuddered to think
what would happen if she attacked
now. An hour passed and the woman
left her spot near the cabin and moved
toward the rail. Half-way across the
deck, she slipped and slid to the rail.
This time, making her way slowly to
safety, she was satisfied to remain near
the cabin.

O IGGER had never been to sea be-
fore the trip from New York to
Sicily. Yet he fought the sea with a
cunning born of desperation. The gal-
ley groaned and cracked under the
force of the waves, and he expected it
to fall apart at any moment. The sky
broke wide open and sheets of rain
poured down, a slanting, driving mass
of blinding water. He could no longer
see the bird-woman. His thoughts per-
sisted in going back to the magic apple.
It had been floating on a stormy sea,
and when he grasped it, the sea became
calm.

He had heard such weird terms as
time-travel, but no machine had been
involved in his case. Perhaps war con-
ditions, the heavy guns for instance,
had broken open some sort of pocket in
time and. he had fallen through. Re-
gardless of how he came here, the apple
had kept him safe.

He had to get it back.

Fate had thrown it within his grasp
once more, and as the storm grew
wilder, he thought he could guess why.
The galley was almost out of control.
Rain formed a blanket of white that
pounded down on the deck. In the dark-
ness, huge waves lashed over the cabin
and the woodwork around him glis-

BURY ME DEEP

181

tened, cleansed by the fury of the storm.
There were no ropes near with which
he could lash the tiller in place. It
might be possible to use the whip for
a rope, but he needed it to protect him.

Yet he had to get that apple, and
get it before a wave threw him over-
board. They were almost large enough
now to swallow the galley in one gulp.
He’d have to take a chance of getting
the apple and returning to the tiller
before the ship foundered.

Rigger dropped the tiller and dodged
as it swung toward him. He ran swiftly
down the deck, lost his balance, came
up on his knees and started to crawl
on his hands and knees. A wave almost
took him overboard, but he dug his
fingers into a crack in the planking,
and held on until it was gone.

He saw the bird-woman disappear
down the hatch into the hold.. He
reached the ladder, gripped the whip
handle in his teeth and dropped.

Here it was dark as a cave. The
timbers groaned like living things. He
was on guard. Somewhere down here
the spurred feet were waiting to kill
him. Driven forward by the urgency
of finding the apple, he felt his way
toward the front of the hold. The
ship rolled dangerously under him.

He started to run. He saw a move-
ment to his right and turned, balancing
carefully as the ship lurched over. The
bird-woman ran toward him, partly
hidden in the darker shadows of the
benches. The lurching ship made her
miss him by inches. Before she could
regain her feet, Rigger lashed out with
all his force. He heard her cry of
pain and saw the whip' wrap around
her neck. She fell, but the whip slipped
away before it choked the life from
her.

Rigger went toward her warily. She
still clutched the apple. He reached
for it and she struck him with her other

hand. Blood streamed from his face
where she had clawed him. A startling,
eager cry escaped her lips. She had
drawn his blood.

“You damned vampire!” he howled.

He tried again, this time getting a
firm grip on the apple. Her foot shot
out and caught him in the chest. Blood
shot from the deep wound that resulted,
‘ The ship trembled from bow to
stern, struck something strong and un-
yielding and broke wide open.

Rigger toppled backward, but in his
hand he held the magic apple. His
head hit something that sent his mind
reeling into inpenetrable blackness.

“J^ADLY wounded man here,” a dull,
expressionless voice said. “Bring
up a stretcher.”

Rigger groaned and tried to go back
to sleep. He heard more voices, and
gradually they began to make sense.
They came closer and were full of
meaning. It was like coming out from
under ether.

“This man’s been hit in the chest.
He needs first aid. The Germans must
have left him behind. Someone stole
his clothing.”

Rigger felt someone prying an ob-
ject out of his hand. He rolled over
on his stomach. He opened his eyes
and closed them again tightly. Then
he tried to struggle to his kness but
the sun against the cobble-stone street
blinded him.

“What the hell’s wrong with those
Red Cross men?” someone said. “Hey,
Private, come over here.”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

Rigger’s mind was growing clearer
now. He wasn’t on the galley. Some-
how he had escaped and was lying in
the middle of a street. Soldiers were
around him. Gun-fire sounded in the
distance.

182

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Private Donald Ranee, sir,” a voice
said.

“Run back to the corner of the last
block,” said the first voice. “Tell those
first aid men to come on the double.
We need ”

“Rigger — Bill Rigger /”

“Do you know this man?”

Ranee dropped to his knees and
turned Rigger over gently.

“ Know him, sir? My God, yes. He
was blown ”

Rigger opened his eyes and started
to grin weakly.

“ — blown to Italy on the same boat
you were, wasn’t I, Don?”

Ranee realized what he had been
about to say. He controlled his voice
carefully.

“That’s right,” he said in a puzzled
voice. “I thought you were a goner.”

“Now that your friend’s safe,” the
lieutenant said. “You’d better get
help.”

Ranee stood up quickly.

/‘Right away,” he said.

Rigger lay very «still after they were
gone. The sun was hot on his face.
The wound didn’t hurt much. The
sound of a rattling machine gun came
sporadically from the next corner. In
the distance the heavy guns thundered
and a lone plane wheeled around in the
cloudless sky overhead.

He heard footsteps approaching and
tried to smile as they rolled him on
the stretcher. It was like coming home
again, just to see his own kind of
people.

“AND t ^ at ’ s story,” Rigger con-
cluded. “I can’t blame you for
laughing at it. It isn’t the kind of
yarn that a fellow would tell his .com-
manding officer.”

Don Ranee stood up and walked to
the foot of the hospital cot. They were
on the second floor of a small Italian

bank. The sun shone in glassless win-
dows. A row of cots hdd been placed
down the center of the room. A nurse
was talking to a shell-shock case near
the door.

Ranee returned and sat down beside
Rigger. Bill Rigger felt good in the
clean hospital gown. He looked so su-
premely contented that Ranee almost
wished he could change places with
him.

“I’ll admit it’s a bed-time story,”
Ranee said. “And told with more than
the usual amount of imagination.”
Rigger nodded sourly.

“I couldn’t expect you to ”

“But t believe it,” Ranee went on
calmly. “I’m forced to.”

Rigger stared up at him, unable to
speak.

“Because yesterday,” Ranee contin-
ued, “I took that metal apple away
from you. Before that, I figured that
somehow you had managed to swim
ashore and had been, living with the
Italians.”

Rigger nodded.

“I swam ashore all right,” he admit-
ted. “But not where I wanted to.”
“Now, about the apple,” Ranee said.
“I thought this morning I was going
crazy. You’ve made me feel better.”
“Go on.”

“Well, I took that apple up front
with me when I went after a Jerry
machine-gun. nest. It was in my pocket
and I forgot it. I was in a bombed
building, trying to smoke out some Jer-
ries who had a sand-bag gun position
half-way down the block.

“I tossed a couple of hand grenades,
but it didn’t move them.”

Ranee sighed.

“Then for no damned reason at all,
the whole street was full of Romans.
They were dressed in helmets and an-
cient battle clothing. Honest to God,
Bill, I could have died on the spot. I

BURY ME DEEP

183

tell you, this war is breaking down
some time barriers that may effect the
entire world. The hellish explosions
of our big guns are cracking time wide
open.'’

“But the Romans,” Rigger asked.
“What happened?”

Ranee grinned broadly.

“They kept coming toward me,” he
admitted. “I was in their way and I
knew I’d soon be a fresh slice of beef.
I reached for another grenade and
tossed it into the middle of them.”

“It. worked?”

“Worked?” Ranee grinned. “The
damned thing exploded like a block-
buster. When the smoke cleared, the
Romans were gone. So was every last
sand bag of that Jerry nest.”

Rigger sighed.

“Then the appearance of the Romans
convinced you that I’m telling the

truth? Is that what did it?”

Ranee looked both ways along the
row of cots. The nurse was still some
distance away.

“The hell it did,” he said. “I could
have been seeing things. You get batty
at times like that.”

“Then — what ?”

“The grenade did it,” Ranee admit-
ted. “I reached for a grenade, but
somehow I musta forgotten I didn’t
have any more. The thing I heaved
into the street — the grenade that ex-
ploded like a block-buster— was that
Gad-damned apple of yours.

“The lieutenant says I’ll get deco-
rated for cleaning up the machine-gun
nest. It seems that it was keeping us
from reaching an objective. He doesn’t
seem to realize that I also wiped out
half the entire Roman army.”

THE END

N O MAJOR military operations by the
United States would be possible in most
quarters of the globe except for the in-
genuity of American chemists.

American scientists have triumphantly opened a
front against a sinister enemy that must be
whipped before we can defeat the -Japs and Ger-
mans. In every tropic and subtropic war zone,
the bayonets of countless billions of mosquitoes
lurk to stab our fighting men with malaria, the
plague that yearly saps the strength of 800,000,000
and kills an estimated 3,500,000 people.

When the Japs conquered the East Indies, they
cut us off from- quinine, specific remedy for this
scourge. Surgeon General Parron of the United
States Public Health Service had stated that no
major military operations were possible in the
tropics “without quinine or the equally potent
German synthetic, Atabrine.” Though our supply
of natural quinine was blocked at the source, we
were already producing sufficient quantities of
Atabrine.

It was magical the way Atabrine brought the
worst malaria sufferers back from the grave. From
many pestholes came reports that doctors no
longer feared the fatal form of malaria. The
Germans tried Atabrine out experimentally in
Rumania, Italy, Spain, Africa and the East Indies.

Back came a roaring yes of scientific approval.
With the new drug one could live in health despite
swarms of deadly malaria mosquitoes. It was a
German monopoly, a master weapon, and now
Hitler’s “Wehrmacht” was ready and rarin’ to go.

But at this point the German dye trust made
its error. The Germans sold the secret of Atabrine
to America. They thought they were driving a
sharp bargain, because they deliberately omitted
vital pieces of the chemical jigsaw puzzle of the
synthesis of Atabrine. Dr. A. E. Shemdal of the
Winthrop Chemical Company knew what the miss-
ing ingredients were, but could not obtain them in
the United States. He therefore devised a process
of making Atabrine by using available American
materials, and produced a medicine identical with
the German chemical.

The American high command knows that Ata-
brine will keep our boys on their feet and fight-
ing, wherever they may be. Millions of pills have
been flown to Brazil, to make possible successful
rubber production in the malaria-infected jungle.

Thanks to Atabrine, this fiendish disabler can
now be wiped out, if we have the will to try.
And we shall meet at least part of our obligation
toward reconstruction by producing and distribut-
ing millions of yellow pills of Atabrine that will
eventually conquer malaria.

ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT FUQUA

“T TOT-LIPS” JOHNSON walked ‘‘That you, Johnson?”

■j ! lazily out of CaseyV Dance Hot-Lips stopped in his tracks,
^ Palace, his trumpet dangling swayed around with the music and
from his right hand, perspiration stand- stared behind him. His eyes twinkled,
ing out on his black forehead. The “How come I didn’ see you when I
parking lot was dusty and hot under, a stepped 'out?”

July Harlem moon. Hot-Lips stared Charlie Washington, a little out of
around him; trying to find company for bounds in his tight trousers and sweat
the few minutes he planned to rest. In- shirt, grinned from ear to ear.
side, the boys were “grooving it on “Guess I and my old horn was lis-
down” with the Two-O'clock Jump . tenin’ to the jive hounds in there,” he
Hot-Lips snapped his . fingers in rhythm admitted. “OV horn kinda likes jive.”
with the music, and wandered toward Hot-Lips looked puzzled,
the street. “What you talking ’bout, tall, dark

184

\usnu

186

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

and handsome? What horn you talking
’bout?”

Charlie Washington backed toward
his Ford that was parked under the
window.

“My bugle-horn, of course,” he said
“Me, I got one of them bugle-horns
on the car. Shore does like music.”

Hot-Lips was a little worried about
Charlie’s condition.

“Ain’t no horn can listen to music,”
he said. “You’re crazy as a skeeter-
bug.”

Charlie Washington frowned.

“Ain’t neither,” he protested. “This
ol’ bugle-horn just listens to music and
plays it all by itself.”

In spite of himself, Hot-Lips was
growing interested. He followed Charlie
Washington, and together they lifted
the hood on the Ford. Underneath
was the shining horn. It had four trum-
pets.

“This here horn used to play just
one tune,” Charlie Washington said
dolefully. “Just the first few notes of
Bugle Call Rag . Shore got tiresome.”

“Go on,” HotrLips said. “You ain’t
telling me it can play more than that
now?”

Charlie Washington nodded.

“Been' playing right along with you
all evening,” he claimed seriously.
“Can’t quite decide which one of you
is hottest.”

That was a personal slam against
the best trumpet man in Harlem. Hot-
Lips backed away slowly, his fingers
itching for competition.

“How long dis horn been playing
like me?”

Charlie Washington looked thought-
ful.

“First time was at the carnival,” he
said. “01’ horn just ripped off some
notes from the merry-go-round, then
stopped. Tell you, I was some sur-
prised.”

“I should think,” Hot-Lips agreed.
“How ’bout a little jam session just
so’s I can make sure?”

Charlie Washington looked pleased.

“Sho’ would be somethin’!” he
agreed. “Now, I’d like to hear you
two take off on the Two-0!clock
Jump!"

Hot-Lips Johnson was grinning. He
polished his beloved trumpet on his
sleeve, lifted it in the air and placed
his lips to the mouth-piece.

“Give!” Charlie Washington begged.

Hot-Lips gave!

TN ALL Harlem there was no other

playing like that. At his lips, the
trumpet became something fit for Gab-
riel to rave about. When he ran up
and down the scale, every curly -headed
baby in the district climbed out of its
cradle and got ready to cut a rug.

The first bell-like notes escaped Hot-
Lips trumpet. Inside Casey’s dance hall
the band stopped playing. A hush fell
oyer everyone. Johnson was doing a
solitary jam session. Man, that was
something to stop the world for!

But what was the other sound? There
couldn’t be anyone in Harlem who had
the nerve to stand up to Hot-Lips?

As the crowd drifted to the doors and
windows, staring out at the dusky fig-
ures in the parking lot two trumpets
started to work together.

At first, the second one was a little
fuzzy. Then it caught up with Hot-
Lips and started to put in the licks that
Johnson missed.

In five minutes the crowd at Casey’s
was swaying, punch-drunk. In ten min-
utes a first class contest was going on,
and Hot-Lips was sweating to keep up.
In a half hour the story was all over
town.

Charlie Washington had bought a
bugle-horn that could keep pace with
the best rhythm-man in town.

HORN O' PLENTY

187

From then on, the story grew like
the immortal bean-stalk. Charlie Wash-
ington, worth two-bits and not a cent
more, had become famous. Every boy
in the neighborhood bought a horn and
tried to work it out on the trumpet of
Hot-Lips Johnson. That rhythm man
fell in love with Charlie’s car and of-
fered him twice what it was worth just
so he’d have the horn around when he
felt a spell coming on.

JT NEVER occured to anyone that
the horn might someday out-play
Hot-Lips himself.. Johnson played his
best, and he played often. The horn
seemed to listen and learn. Once in
a while it knocked off a tune or two
when Johnson wasn’t around.

Then Hot-Lips went to Albany for
a week, to play with Jan Strutter’s Hot
Numbers, and Charlie’s Ford got a con-
tract at Casey’s Dance Palace.

They say there was never anything
funnier in Harlem than the sight of
Charlie Washington’s old Ford, its hood
pushed up, squatting there in the brass
section. They say that nothing Hot-
Lips Johnson ever produced could equal
the quality and tone that the bugle-
horn turned out.

Harlem came and saw and paid hom-
age. The cats were wild for more.
Major Bowes made an offer and Charlie
turned it down. He was happy at
Casey’s.

Then Hot-Lips came back from his
week, ready to accept the cheers of the
crowd he expected at the station. He
wandered around to Casey’s that night
with an almost pale expression on his
face. His pep was gone. His job was
gone. Casey’s Rhythm Cats didn’t need
him any more. He had been replaced
by the machine age. Canned music,
played by a bugle-horn, and contained
in the rattling body of a decrepit Ford,
If Johnson had been a better man,

he might have stuck it out. Instead,
it drove him to cheap dance halls, and
increased his yen for raw whiskey. He
got a little short of cash and joined
up with Spike Howard’s gang of hood-
lums.

Spike was plenty smart. He sent
Johnson out on a couple of small safe-
cracking jobs, just to get the feel of
things. Then, one night, he sent for
Johnson and met him behind the gam-
bling room at Casey’s Dance Palace.

Spike had been in every crooked deal
he could find since his Mammy first
tossed him into the street. He had a
scar on his cheek from an old razor
fight and he’d been collecting on that
scar ever since.

“Look here, Johnson,” Spike said,
as soon as they could talk alone. “You
been working fo’ me about two months
now. Ain’t it time you caught up on
yo’ own homework?”

Johnson scowled.

“What you talking ’bout?”

Spike grinned and it made the scar
glow as though it were bleeding.

“This Charlie Washington boy,”
Spike prompted. “You ain’t gonna let
him get away with what he done, is
you?”

Hot-Lips scowled a little harder.

“Ain’t nothin' I can do, is there?”

“Ain’t no reason why you can’t steal
that four-wheeled juke-box?”

Johnson looked startled.

“Never thought of it like that.”

Spike pushed a wad of greenbacks
across the table.

“I can peddle that jumpin’ jive-hound
to a guy in Chicago,” he said. “You
can count one hundred bucks in the
hunk of dough. You deliver that four-
wheeled trumpet to the freight siding
down near my place and the money is
yo’s .”

Johnson brightened.

“You can also get your ol’ job back

with Casey/’ Spike said, adding the
clinching touch.

Johnson stood up slowly, and when
he went out, the money was clenched
tightly in his big hand.

TT MIGHT have worked, too. He
might have succeeded in stealing
Charlie Washington’s Ford if he had
disconnected the horn before he drove,
it out of Casey’s Dance Palace.

But the horn objected.

Casey’s was deserted at four o’clock.
Hot- Lips Johnson managed to back the
Ford out the rear door and get as far
as the street.

What happened after that is history
in Harlem.

The trumpet horns started to bleat
the minute they reached the street. It
was terrible.

First came the Bugle Call Rag.

“You can’t get ’em up,

You can’t get ’em up,

You can’t get ’em up this morning.”

High and shrill came the warning in
Harlem’s deserted streets.

Windows flew open and lights went
on. Heads poked out the window's, and
started a cry of protest.

Johnson, driving as fast as the car
would go, felt sweat pop cut on his
forehead.

The horn was silent for only an in-
stant after finishing the last notes of
the Rag. Then, evidently becoming
playful, it imitated a police siren for
five blocks and worked from that right
into a heart-breaking rendition of It’s
Murder, He Says.

By this time, Johnson had gone com-
pletely wild. He cut across lots be-
tween a couple of apartment buildings.

As he emerged on the street again,

holding fiercely to the wheel, the horns
broke into the sad, mournful strains. of
In The Hush Of Evening.

That was too much.

\ Hot-Lips Johnson cleared the door
' and fell headlong into the street. By
this time a crowd had collected on the
sidewalk. The Ford didn’t stop roll-
ing. It rounded the next corner arid
sped down between the lines of men.
and women who filled the sidewalks..

There are those who will swear that
as it neared the building excavation
on the next corner, those trumpets were
dolefully swinging out with My Last
Goodbye.

It was a fact that the deep excava-
tion was half filled with water. The
Ford didn’t hesitate, but plunged
straight through the fence and tipped
end over end into ten feet of muddy
water.

A howl of sadness arose and swelled
until it reached the outskirts of Harlem.

The last tune that Charlie Washing-
ton’s bugle-horn ever played, was beat-
ing shrilly against the night as the Ford
plunged toward the water.

“And so help me,” Charlie Washing-
ton said afterward, with tears in his
, eyes, “that ol’ Ford was tooting Taps
just as it went under.”

gOMEHOW, when it was all over,
no one had the heart to punish Hot-
Lips Johnson. He hung around Casey’s
for a long time, pleading with Charlie
Washington for forgiveness. Perhaps
Charlie felt that he hadn’t been entirely
fair with Hot-Lips. Anyway, after a
few weeks, Hot-Lips was back in the
band. His trumpet was sweeter than
ever, but he never played again within
hearing distance of a bugle-horn.

ENLARGEMENT

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188

I£®MAN-€I ©

EFFECT'S ARE. ACHIEVE© WITH THE
HELP OF LITHIUM COMPOUNDS. FIRST
TO SEE LITHIUM 1 * BRILLIANT
RED COlOfi WAS PROBABLY CjME-
UN WHEN He APPUEO A FLAME
TO ITS SALTS BACK IN |0l6.

HJT TOOK A MORE POWERFUL BAT
TERY THAN OWNED BY EITHER! QME-
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LITHIUM SALTS. IN 1817, ARVED-
SON ; TOUTMFUL SWEDE SCIENTIST,
k SENSED THE EXISTENCE OF THIS NEW
\ ELEMENT, TRIED frantically

^ TO ISOLATE IT. BUT IT TOOK

\6Rande's biq voltaic A

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COMPOUNDS WERE PHARMACEUTICAL '
"STANDBYS" AS EARLY AS THE IBTO'S.
THEY WERE LONQ CONSIDERED "TOPS*' FOG
THE TREATMENT OF GOUT. LITHIUM
AND ITS COMPOUNDS ARE DUE TO FILL
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metals. Its practical uses are mostly medicinal.

(NEXT ISSUE: The Romance of Palladium)

189

St Ewm® the mmasmmt <gmn°@@ oi m

to an

Tmmu°fivgip thmt
am UBam lbmtitEe imn° &

O YOU expect to live for-
ever?” Casca hollered at the
Christian martyr. He shoved
the point of his spear into the martyr’s
back so that the man sprawled to the
tan-bark on all fours.

“Make him crawl into the lion’s
arena!” another Roman legionnaire
cried.

The other legionnaires roared in
laughter at the discomfiture of the mar-
tyr. Some of them spat at him while
others threw stones at his head.

But, in spite of the hail of "curses
and stones and spear-jabs, the martyr

Vmi, Ok

stood up from the tan-bark, threw back
his shoulders proudly and stared at his
tormenters. His. wild matted hair stood
out from his head like wiry snakes.
His dark 'eyes smoldered in shadowed
eye-sockets with intense hatred. His
red beard quivered as he spoke.

“I call down a curse. on all of you!”
he screamed.

His words brought another sally of
laughter. The roar of a hungry lion
came to their ears. The gates had been
opened. The wild beasts had entered
the arena and the Roman populace was
slavering for its sport.

ILLUSTRATED BY J. ALLEN ST. JOHN

- 35 ttt&m-*

192

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“Feed him to the lions!” the. legion-
naire Casca hollered. He nudged the
martyr with theitip of his spear. “Get
going, you!” he said, “the lions are
waiting for you!”

“May the curse of heaven dog you
for all the days of your life and death!”
the martyr continued as the spear-
points of the other legionnaires backed ,
him up to the door that opened into the
arena. “May your filthy souls wander
after death between heaven and hell,
lost! lost! May you never know the
solace of rest after death! May you all
linger on earth, even after death, when
your bodies are dust and your spirits
have left the dust, lost! lost! And not
until you have come to the aid of other
Christians, like myself, should you re-
ceive the blessed release of life after
death! Not until then should your
wandering, lost souls find their haven!”

“Yah!” one of the legionnaires
called out. He lunged forward with
his spear and pushed the martyr
through the door that another legion-
naire had opened. “Feed your worth-
less curses to the lions!”

The door was hastily shut behind the
martyr. And as the legionnaires made
their way up the ramp to the upper
deck, so that they could watch the fun,
they heard . a wild scream issue from
the arena.

“That’s what the lions think of his
curses ! ” Casca said to his friend Tulla.

“His curse was ominous!” Tulla re-
plied.

“Are you afraid of a martyr’s empty
curse?” Casca demanded. “You, a
soldier of the glorious Roman empire?”

“These martyrs, they say, have
strange powers!”

“Don’t be stupid!” Casca replied.
“This is the year 250.. That stuff about
curses is all old-fashioned bunk. We
don’t believe in these superstitions any
more.”

But Tulla was not reassured. “I
don’t know,” he said dubiously. “The
next Christian I see, I’m going to try
and help him and get rid of the curse!”

“But the Emperor Decius has issued
an edict saying ,that the martyrs are
to be persecuted!” Casca insisted.

1 “An edict is a piece of parchment!”
Tulla replied, “but a martyr’s curse ...”
He shuddered as he left the sentence
unspoken.

A few days after the fun at the arena,
the Fifth Company of Roman Legion-
naires, to which Casca and Tulla be-
longed, was sent to a small village,
near Byrsa, where a tribe of native
marauders had rebelled against the
Roman rule. The entire company of
Romans was ambushed. They were
all killed and horribly mutilated. And
there, on the plain, their bodies fell
among the green cactus. And only the
green lizards,, crawling through the eye-
sockets of the whitened bones, knew
that they had died. Only the green
lizards and the Christian martyr whom
they had taunted and pushed out to
the lions.

From that day on, the Arabs re-
fused to travel through the district. In-
stead, they would skirt the plain to
get to their destinations.

“The dead have not yet died,” they
would say.

And, sometimes, when an unlucky
traveler passed across the plain at night,
he would hear the mournful wails of
departed spirits. And he would push
his camel to its utmost so as to get
away as fast as possible. And as they
lurched through the night, they would
hear a keening, as of dying souls, rid-
ing with the wind at their backs.

'Y'HE twelve American soldiers
slithered noiselessly through the
high grass. Occasionally their leader,
Lieutenant Jack Sidall, would raise his

THE CURSE OF THE PHANTOM LEGION

193

head to survey the land that lay ahead.
Finally, they reached the top of a
small hill. The lieutenant gathered his
men around him.

“Take a look down into the valley
across the plain/’ he said.

The men looked.

“Geez!” one of them said under his
breath.

Far in the haze of distance, they
could see the red tiled roofs and the
gilded minarets of mosques gleaming
in the rays of the setting sun.

“That’s Tunis!” the lieutenant said.
“Just like Coney Island!” Sergeant
Mulroy said. He turned to the lieuten-
ant. “What’s in the cards now, Lieu-
tenant?” he asked.

“That depends on what the Germans
know,” was the reply. “If they sus-
pect that we’re here, I can promise you
a pretty hot time.”

“And if they don’t?” one of the men
asked. v

“Then we’ll do the job we were sent
out to do. The general attack,” he
explained, “is going to take place at
five tomorrow morning. We’re behind
the German lines now and it’s our job
to mine the roads, so that they can’t
retreat, and to blow up whatever bridges
we can find. In other words,” he con-
cluded, “we’re here to make it as tough
for the Germans as we can!”

“How much further we got to go?”
Sergeant Mulroy asked.

The lieutenant pointed to a white
road threading through the valley and
the plain that lay ahead. “There’s the
road,” he said. “We should reach it
at about nine o’clock this evening.”
“When do we eat?”

“As soon as we hit the road!”

There was some grumbling from the
men, a good-natured kind of grumbling.
But they tightened their belts, shifted
their packs and, when the lieutenant
gave the order, followed him once more

through the high grass, snaking their
way along noiselessly.

They reached their objective at about
nine o’clock. There, in a clump of
palm trees, the lieutenant gave them
the order to fall out. After freeing them-
selves of the heavy packs they had been
carrying, they opened their K-ration
packs and ate the concentrated foods
and chocolate.

“No smoking!” the lieutenant
warned. “We’ll start to mine the road
at about midnight. Better get the mines
unpacked. You’ve all been given your
job and I want no noise. Until then,
and only after you’ve gotten every-
thing ready, you can do what you want.
But you’ve got to stay here. The least
indication to the Germans that we’re
here — and we’re goners. Not only that
but we will have failed in our mission
and there’ll be hell to pay when the
attack starts tomorrow. That’s all.”
“We can do what we want!” one of
the men grumbled to Sergeant Mulrby.
“What the hell is there for us to do
but lay here and twiddle our thumbs.”
“You can think about that Mamie
dame you left in Wauwatosa!” the ser-
geant grunted. He left the group of
men and snaked over to where the lieu-
tenant was seated alone.

“You’re kind of worried, sir, aren’t
you?” he said.

“Kind of,” - the lieutenant replied.
“It’s been too damned quiet around
here to suit me. I thought we’d at
least come across a couple of Heinie
patrols. You’d think they’d have sense
enough to protect their rear. But so
far there’s been nothing. It isn’t like
the Germans to do that. I’m afraid
they’ve got something up their sleeves.”
“Like what?”

“Like letting us walk into a trap.”
“You mean we’re in it now?”

“Yes — and it’s liable to be sprung
any minute.”

1S4

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

r T''HE sergeant rubbed his week-old
beard. “It wouldn’t be so bad if
there was a moon out,” he said. “Me,
I like to see what’s cornin’ at me when
it starts to come.”

The lieutenant remained quiet for a
long time. Finally, he said, “This part
of the country has. seen a helluva lot
of fighting, Sergeant.”

“Yeah?”

^ “Between the old Romans and the
Carthaginians. There was the battle
of Metaurus, in 207 b.c. That was
when Nero defeated the army of Has-
drubal and took over North Africa
as part of the Roman Empire.” 1
“They were the old Eyetalians,
huh?”

“That’s right.”

“The same guys we took Libya away
from, huh?”

“The same guys. The native guides
told me, before I .left the base, that
this old battlefield is haunted.”

The sergeant looked around into the
darkness. “Haunted, you say, huh?”
“There’s an old legend,” the lieuten-
ant said, “about a company of Roman
soldiers that was ambushed by the na-
tives hundreds of years ago. And the
story is that the soldiers were killed
but they didn’t die.”

“What kind of tripe is that?”
“That’s the story,” the lieutenant
said. “Seems that a Christian martyr
they’d thrown to the lions put a curse
on them and told them that, although
they’d all be killed, none of them would
die until they helped a Christian in
distress.”

“The bunk, huh?” The sergeant
spat on the ground. “Why, back in
Brooklyn, I remember there was a

haunted house once, and ” He

stopped short suddenly. A low moan,
as of a howling wolf ot a dying dog,
came to his ears.

“What was that?” he said.

The lieutenant listened closely; The
moan was repeated. He looked up
to the tops of the palm trees swaying
high overhead,

“Might be the wind,” he said..

They listened together this time.
Again the moan was repeated. One
by one, the other men began to crawl
up to where they were seated.

“I don’t like it!” the lieutenant said.
“Have your guns ready for action. Set
up the machine guns. Michaels and
Foster, stand guard fifty paces from
camp. Report any suspicious occur-
rence immediately.”

The two soldiers crawled away to
their posts. The others remained
sprawled around the lieutenant and the
sergeant. They lay on the ground,
bodies tensed with apprehension. They
heard a rustling of the grass in the dis-
tance and hoped it was only the two
men who had been put on guard duty.

Then it happened. Suddenly, from
the distance, they heard the muffled
report of cannon fire. Then came the
whistle and whine of shells followed
by the ominous crump of -thejr explo-
sions as they landed some distance
away.

“The Heinies!” the- sergeant grunted.

“They’re wise!” the lieutenant said.
“The trap’s being sprung!”

“What’ll we do?”

“What we came here to do!” the
lieutenant said grimly. Quietly he
called the men together again. Around
them, getting closer and closer, as the
artillerymen began to find the range,
the shells landed with tumultuous ex-
plosions, rocking the earth so that the
ground shook underfoot.

“You men have all got your orders!”
he commanded. “I want you to fol-
low them. The sappers to do the min-
ing, the others to cover them. We’ll
work back on the road as far as the
mines last. After that, we’ll haVe to

THE CURSE OF THE PHANTOM LESION

195

see what’ll happen]”

by- one, the men crawled away
from the group, some snaking their
way to the road which lay about twenty
feet ahead, while others set up their
tommy-guns in readiness for an at- (
tack. And as the sappers completed
their job of laying a mine, they would
pace off a few feet and lay another
one, each time being followed by the
men at the tommy-guns.

All this time, the shells continued to
burst around them. One of the sappers
fell with a shell splinter in his thigh.
A covering man lifted him up and band-
aged the leg. It was only a slight flesh
wound, and in a few minutes the sapper
was back on the road again, working
with the mines.

After some time the. sappers reported
that they had laid all their mines.
Gathering his^men together, the lieu-
tenant found that none of them had
been seriously wounded. He looked
at his watch. It was four o’clock. It
still lacked an hour before the attack
was scheduled to begin. He still had
an hour , in which he could mine the
bridge over the gully. But the shells
were continuing to fall about them in
deadly monotony. The barrage had
not let up during the entire time. The
Germans were out to annihilate them
completely.

‘‘We’ll take care of the bridge,” he
told his men quietly. He hated to tell
them. As he looked around at their
faces, he saw that they were all dog-
tired. But they had their job to do.
Quickly he assigned jobs to each of the
men. And then, with the shells burst-
ing around them hellishly, they made
their way to the deep gorge over which
the suspension bridge had been thrown.
With a practiced eye, Lieutenant Sidall
surveyed the structure, noting carefully
where the TNT charges would do the

most good. He decided to lay them
at the extreme end, connected with land
mines. That would mean that if the
retreating army tried to cross the
bridge, the forward elements, would set
the charges just when the entire bridge
was loaded with men and machines.

It took half an hour for the men
to complete the job. When it was done,
they returned to their original posi-
tions. The shells were still falling in
intermittent barrages. It was obvious
to the lieutenant that their way of
escape Was being consistently shelled.
The Germans knew exactly where they
were and their only means of getting
out.

Once more he brought his tired men
around him. “Looks bad,” he told them.
“They’ve got our line of retreat pretty
well covered with the barrage. But it’s
our only way back to our own lines.
If we try it, some of us might get
through. Most of us won’t,' I’m sure.”

“It’s a cinch we can’t stay here,”
the sergeant said.

“Then let’s us get going!” came from
one of the men.

“Only a miracle can save us,” the
lieutenant said. Then, gathering his
pack together, he slung it over his back
and started off the way they had come.
The sergeant followed close to the rear
of him with the others strung out be-
hind.

ROUND them, the crump and
crunch of exploding shells burst
like a battle in hell. Ahead of them,
getting closer and closer , as they inched
forward, a seeming curtain of shells
burst in hellish unison. Only when
they had approached it as closely as
possible did the lieutenant stop. The
sergeant continued forward until he
came to where the lieutenant was rest-

ing.

“How about it, Lieutenant?”

196

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

“This is it!” the lieutenant replied.
“We’ve done our job. I guess we can
thank the Lord for that.” He started
to crawl forward again. Suddenly he
stopped short.

“What's the matter, Lieutenant?”
the sergeant asked. He crawled for-
ward hastily. “Are you hit, sir?”

The lieutenant sat up and listened
intently to something. “Do you hear
what I hear?” he asked.

The sergeant listened. „He still heard
the sound of the whine and crump, of
shells. But somehow they seemed to
have decreased in intensity.

“They’re slowing down,” he said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“What do you make of it?” 'j

“I don’t know,” the lieutenant re-
plied. “Unless they’re running short
of shells — or unless they’re just getting
tired of lobbing them over.”

They both sat and listened. Now
they were both certain. The intensity
of the barrage had lessened consider-
ably. The effect was as though a sniper
was ticking off a gunner at each posi-
tion so that, gradually, the battery was
being decimated -and its gunfire dimin-
ished. Soon only a few guns sporad-
ically boomed and sent over their inter-
mittent shells.

“We can make it!” the lieutenant
grinned.

“What happened?” the sergeant
asked.

“I don’t know!” the lieutenant re-
plied, “but, whatever it was, it was a
Godsend to us. Now we can cut through
their weak barrage and make it back
to our lines ! ”

Suddenly, before they realized it,
the night was silent once more. The
last gun had fired its last shell. The
quiet was almost repressive, coming so
soon after the murderous explosions of
the barrage they had just undergone.

“It’s stopped!” the sergeant whis-

pered wonderingly, his eyes wide.

“By a miracle 1” the lieutenant
breathed, almost prayerfully. Then
quickly he shushed the sergeant into
silence. “Do you hear what I hear?”
he asked presently.

The sergeant listened. Again, as
though coming from the heavens, he
heard what sounded like a faint moan.
But this time, instead of sounding
ominous and deathly, it had a note of
triumph in it.

“Like the sound of English horns
coming in on a Wagner scene,” the lieu-
tenant explained later.

“It’s getting fainter and fainter,” the
sergeant said. “What the hell is it?”

The lieutenant shrugged his shoul-
ders. “Your guess is as good as mine,”
he said. “Whatever it was, I’m sure
it had something to do with holding off
that barrage that was going to be sure
death to us.”

“Spooks?” the sergeant asked.

“Maybe.”

“Nuts!” the sergeant replied.
“That’s all the bunk!” He signalled
to the men behind him. “Anyhow,
let’s us get going while the going’s
good.”

The lieutenant nodded agreement,
hitched up his pack behind him and
started off again. The sergeant fol-
lowed and, behind him, the men began
to inch forward.

They had looked death in the face.

They had lived through it.

r J''HE German field hospital, behind
the lines, was loaded with casual-
ties. The' two doctors and their or-
derlies cursed as the men were brought
in on stretchers.

“What happened to all the gunners?”
the stiff-necked colonel demanded of
one of the doctors. “Right in the mid-
dle of the barrage that they were laying
down, they all started to drop, one. by

THE CURSE OF THE PHANTOM LEGION

197

one, as if they were being picked off
by snipers.”

The doctor who was bending over
one of the casualties straightened up
again. There was a look of puzzlement
in his face. His mouth was open, in
awe it seemed, and his monocle dropped
from his eye.

“What’s the matter?” the colonel
screamed. “How could they have been
shot when we didn’t hear a single re-
turn shot?”

“They were not shot,” the doctor
said slowly. ,

“What nonsense are you talking?”
the colonel demanded.

“They were not shotl” the doctor ^
repeated, almost mechanically.

“Then how were they killed?”

The doctor pointed to the gaping
wound in the back of the gunner they
had just brought in. “Look at that
wound,” he said. “That’s not a gun-
shot wound.”

“What is itj then?” the colonel de-
manded.

“The same kind of wound all the
other gunners had in their backs — a
wound inflicted by a sharp, pointed in-
strument that pierced the heart.”
“What kind of an instrument?”

“A spear!”

★

T HE most exciting story in all medical his-
tory is the development of a n'ew drug,
penicillin. A year ago it was a laboratory
curiosity, known only to a few research men. To-
day, scientists are convinced that in penicillin they
have the most potent weapon ever found against
a number of diseases — among them blood poison-
ing, pneumonia and gonorrhea.

The story of penicillin begins in 1929, when Dr.
Alexander Fleming, at work in his University of
London laboratory was examining a glass culture
plate milky with millions of bacteria. There was
a fleck of green mold on the plate, and around
this fleck was a halo of dear fluid.

A mold is a low form of vegetable life, a primi-
tive plant. Penicillium is a relative of the green
mold in Roquefort cheese. Some substance se-
creted by this mold was the microbe destroyer.

Dr, Fleming fished out the mold but research on
it stood still for ten years. Why this long pause?
For one thing, there was little interest at the time
in chemotherapy— the cure of disease with chemi-
cals.

Chemists set to work at the tedious task of
growing the green mold in earthenware flask. When
the mold had grown into a hard, rubbery mat the
chemists took over. By a slow process of elimina-
tion, the chemists discarded chemical components
of the mold that had no antibacterial effect. In
the end they turned up with the minutest pinch of
a yellow-brown powdery stuff. The first run trials
of the yellow powder were run in tests tubes.

Penidllin worked wonders in fighting osteomye-
litis and streptococcus infections. Penicillin had
great advantages but was incredibly difficult to
produce.

In its laboratory at Peoria, Illinois, the Dept. of.
Agriculture undertook one tremendously important

phase of the problem. Researchers discovered that
com steep liquor — a by-product of the starch in-
dustry — was a diet which coaxed the mold into in-
creased production. Three' large pharmaceutical
houses set to work growing the mold and extract-
ing the difficult drug. The three leaders in this
work were Merck & Company, E. R. Squibb &
Sons, and Charles A. Pfizer and Company.

There was still another problem. Penicillin was
the ideal drug for fighting infected war wounds.
It would save the lives of gravely injured soldiers
when everything else had "failed. But military
surgeons had to leam how to use it.

Doctors had to leam where the drug would
work, how much should be administered, and
what method of administration was best. The job
of determining these things fell to' the National
Research Council’s Committee on Chemotherapeu-
tics, of which Dr. Chester S. Keefer, Director of
the Evans Memorial Hospital in Boston, is chair-
man. Every^gram of penicillin would go to Dr.
Keefer and he would pass it along to the 22 hos-
pitals selected for clinical trials.

Supplies of the drug are still small. The Army
has already asked for many times as much penidl-
lin as is being produced. Thirteen pharmaceutical
houses, in addition to the original three, are plan-
ning to help fill this demand. Even with this big
increase, there is little likelihood that civilian sup-
plies will be available until after the wax.

If chemists can make the drug artificially, large
supplies would be immediately available. Present
evidence indicates that penicillin is a complex
chemical which will be difficult or impossible to
synthesize. It is already clear that penidllin is an
unparalleled weapon against death, and will ulti-
mately rank as one of the greatest accomplish-
ments ever made by medical research.

Scientists have been ashing her age, but she will
not speak except evasively. Here are some answers

T HE means by which the members of the
feminine sex have succeeded in covering the
tell-tale marks of age are legendary. Their
ingenuity and, imagination toward that end are a
credit to them and they deserve our commendation
for this delightful hoax.

It is remarkable when you consider that science,
which does not even have workable theories on
this subject, has succeeded in determining the age
of many objects which would seem to present a
more complex problem. Plants and animals in na-
ture present no problem at all. Fossils which have
lain hidden for thousands of years are uncovered,
examined, and their life-span placed with amazing
accuracy. Marine animals of 50 million years ago,
elephants and rhinos of the Ice Ages, footprints of
dinosaurs, are all fitted neatly into an historical
pattern which, though always ■ subject to logical
change and modification, becomes more accurate
as time goes on.

The most complex problem involving age, how-
ever, that men of science have tackled since they
began their search has even today escaped an ac-
curate solution. It is the problern of .the age of
this planet, the Earth, and what a fascinating
enigma it has been. The first theory was offered
on the basis of evidence found in the Old Testa-
ment. After a great deal of research and mathe-
matical calculations James Ussher, Archbishop of
Armagh, announced in 1654 that the Earth was
created at 9 A.M. on October 26th, 4004 B.C.
That would make the age of the Earth now 5948
years. Needless to^say that estimate proved to be
a little low.

When, in the 13th century, there began a
series of serious scientific investigations into the
problem it became evident that the method adopted
would to a great degree determine the result.
Each method uncovered new evidence and new
proof that made the history of our planet extend
into the millions of years. Each method, however,
gave way to newer methods in scientific research.

In 1899 the physicist, Joly, arrived at the mini-
mum age for the Earth as 97 million years. His
theory assumed that since the seas contained dis-
solved minerals brought by the rivers flowing down
from the land, if we measured the amount of salt
— one of the minerals which stays in solution — in
the seas, and divided it by the amount of salt
brought yearly by these rivers, we could arrive
at the age of the oceans. After innumerable analyses
of samples and elaborate measurements of streams
he reached the conclusion cited above, which later

work raised to about 110 million years. Since
then we have recognized that, since we live in a
time when lands are high, more salt is carried
away than was possible when the continents were
young. This led scientists to believe-that the aver-
age yearly deposit was less and the subsequent age
of" the seas much greater.

Another theory offered by geologists had the
same fault. For example, the rivers of the United
States carry 733 million tons of stone stuff (about
6 million cubic feet) into the ocean every year.
Divide this by the area of the United States and
you see that it takes about 10,000 years before an
average of one foot of solid rock is worn away.
The conclusion reached on this basis has the same
fault as the “salt method,” namely, the rate of
wear lessens as lands grow lower and therefore the
clock of erosion is no clock at all.

The most recent method which has been offered
by scientists comes from physicists rather than
geologists. The discovery of radium by the Curies
was the inspiration. This curious element is ex-
tremely active, and by means of its radio-active
nature produces helium and heat until it turns it-
self into lead. The explanation is quite simple.
Each new radium atom shoots out 8 alpha parti-
cles, 6 electrons, and a little heat. The heat radi-
ates away, the alpha particles annex electrons and
become the element Helium, the atoms which are
left behind become a special kind of lead which
weighs less than the ordinary sort, These changes
have been measured and are known to take place
at a definite rate of speed. Particles are shot out
just often enough to tum half the uranium in a
sample rock into lead in 5 billion years. The ratio
of the lead to the uranium, therefore, would de-
termine the age of the rock. No rocks have been
found in which half the uranium has turned to
lead which means that no one has found a rock 5
billion years old. Rocks have been found in which
the ratio is 0.292 to 1.00, or .292 of 5 billion, or
1,460,000,000 years old. Though they depend on
an accurate specimen, the conclusions are reliable.
However, they are only able to tell us the age of
the rock near the Earth’s surface. What lies be-
neath we do not know; perhaps we shall never
know.

So you see that old Mother Earth has succeeded
admirably - in hiding her age from the probing
minds of mankind. Though her daughters, our
fair females, have taken the cue from her and still
keep men guessing, they can still learn plenty from
the old lady.

19J

NOW HE KNOWS!

Sin:

I am one of those persons who made fun of the
ones who read Fantastic Adventures and now.
that I’ve read it I realize what I’ve missed.

“The Return of Jongor” was good- I like Jon-
gor as well as I do Tarzan and that’s plenty. Try
to get more of him. I agree with Manfred Baskin
about a sdentifktion book club. I wasn’t going
to, but then I figured if nobody wrote even though
they wanted a book dub there wouldn’t be one,
so I wrote and I sure hope you have one.

George Caldwell
1115 San Anselrao Ave.
San Anselmo, Calif.

It never, does pay to ridicule anything without
first considering whether or not it is deserving of
ridicule. Even the veriest "n-ut " deserves a hear-
ing. We’ve gotten a lot of fine stories by living
up to that rule . — Ed.

HE SHOULD KNOW!

Sirs:

I have been reading your mags for about a year
now and find that for sheer entertainment and
variety they cannot be beat. I can say this with
authority because, to the best of my knowledge, I
have read, at one time or another, every science-
fictlon mag now appearing.

I have just finished the April issue of Fantastic
and I find that, although it is good, it is far
inferior to the Feb. number. I will not try to
list the titles in the order in which they rated as
there was very little variation in quality. How-
ever, I do think that the Jongor story was the
best and it’s a shame it wasn’t as good as the
cover. The one by Cabot was the only deficit in
this issue.

The suggestion by Manfred Baskin on the Read-
er’s Page was one of the few sensible ones I've
s€en offered, and I am all for such a dub. As an
introductory offer why not give away a volume
containing all the stories so far published about
Lefty Feep, Juggernaut Jones, and a few other
really good series characters? And if such a dub
is formed, let’s see plenty of the three B’s, Bur-
roughs, Binder, and Bond. Also Weinbaum.

Wm. M. Carey, Jr.
115 William Street
Kearny, N. J.

'We are glad to have your authoritative opinion
on our magazines. As for the book club sugges-
tion, -we have received almost 100 % favorable re-
ply, and few letters neglect to mention it. If we
can build up a sizeable list of potential members,
perhaps this suggestion will be a must after the
war . — Ed.

A YERXA DEFENDER

Sirs:

I take it upon myself to explain something to
one of the readers of F.A., (I will not put him in
the class of normal readers of this mag by calling
him a fan). George W. Hall in my estimation
should not be allowed to buy F. A.

I'd like to tell Mr. Hall where to get off, calling
Yerxa’s stories immature, badly written, insincere
and mediocre.

I’ve been reading F. A. for quite a long time
now and whenever I see Mr. Yerxa’s name on the
table of contents I get a flip-flop feeling, for I
know I’m in for some good reading.

M. J. Rosensky
1678 45 St.
Brooklyn, N. Y.

Mr. Yerxa will love you ! — Ed.

A RADIO MAN CORRECTS

Sirs:

Re: “You Can Say That Again,” December
Fantastic Adventures.

First: The story was weak as fantasy, and cer-
tainly NOT sdentifiction. Then:

A. The Illustration was a bit incorrect : 1. An-
nouncer is using popular CAPSULE type micro-
phone, obviously. Announcer is speaking into
DEAD end of mike. M-m-m, complicated. 2.
Furtive figure in background could NOT have
entered properly locked studio, when said studio
was ON THE AIR, or RECORDING.

B. The write-up of the story was a bit un-
palatable, in that: 1. An AMPLIFIER, (the

author obviously meant AMPLIFIER) is NOT
a receiver. 2. When recording, AMPLIFIER Is
switched on BEFORE time of use, to “warm up”
— preparatoiy to proper reproduction of signal
from mike. 3. For proper recording, announcer
would NOT operate mike switch, until recording
head, (cutting mechanism) had been placed on
already turning disc. Such procedure requiring
OPERATOR (Langley) to give ANNOUNCER

200

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(Reese) cue. 4. WAX discs are NOT used for
broadcast. Processed recordings, transcriptions,
occasional, acetate, and glass-acetate instantaneous
recordings and SOME movie film sound track
recording, and more recently, magnetic wire, but
NEVER— WAX! 5. The MELLOW whiskey
account plays a large part in the author’s recount-
ings. If memory serves me right, hard liquors are
NOT commercially mentioned in radio advertising.
(In accordance with National Association of
Broadcasters’ dictum of years standing.) 6. Ref-
erence to announcer’s drunkenness, on the air,
TABOO. (Federal Communications Commission.)
7. Of course, the veryUNprofessional touch given
the commercial, is excusable. 8. Commercial copy
(continuity) CANNOT be ad-libbed. Further,
F.T.C. requires submission of all copy, one of
every three months, for scrutiny by F.T.C. 9. The
use of profanity is ILLEGAL. Langley’s fingers
would NOT have refused to touch the “key” had
he been intelligent enough to know the least pun-
ishment for his friend, and in view of- his own
actions, himself, would be banishment from radio.
(Getting the blackball, we call it.) With a great
possibility of jail sentences. (F.C.C. regulations.
Not more than ten years, or $10,000, or both.)
10. According to the story, on page 120 — well —
I can’t take it. Such goings on are impossible!
But first — the author apparently meant TRANS-
MITTER “PLANT”— when he said POWER
STATION. Well, transmitters are (F.C.C. regu-
lations) attended by engineers, who MUST moni-
tor all transmissions. And such an attendant
s wouid surely cut the studio line, in event of such
tampering. Further, if the network show were
“piped” -through the transmitter, how could an
operator at the studio’ cut the net? Further yet,
cutting the net, without authority, would amount
to deliberate disruption of published broadcast
schedule without cause, and, as such, would be
punishable by law, as would be the vandalism of
breaking and entering a radio station, under the
surveillance of the Federal Government.

Now, after this partial list of the MOST GLAR-
ING discrepancies, I shall add but a few com-
ments. Perhaps any radio 'man should consider
it beneath his dignity, to remark on such an asi-
nine opus. However, Mr. Irwin’s effort is one of
many such, in an ever-widening tide of incorrect,
inaccurate, senseless ridicules of , radio, by persons
who, as the above corrections demonstrate, .know
damned little if ANYTHING about radio. Just
looking through at a studio window, or into a con-
trol room exposed to the public, makes NOBODY
capable of judging ANY part of the profession
and artistic labors that require not only skill, but
logic and common sense.

Well, that does it-r-except for one final, sincere
word — I’ve. been a fan of Amazing for, years. And
with this exception — I’ve found Fantastic easily
taken. I’m no critic of writing, so vthis is the first
criticism Fve ever written. But certainly, you

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

201

can sympathize with me, as the above subject is
very close to my heart.

Ron Davis
(address withheld)

Both your author and your editor know a great
deal more about radio than before. Thanks for
your professional analysis of Mr. Irwin’s story.
— Ed.

Sirs:

I have noted, to my extreme dissatisfaction, that
you have published quite a number of time-travel
stories in your past few issues of AS and FA. Now
I have no grudge or dislike that forces me to
make the above statement. It is only the follow-
ing few words:

TIME-TRAVEL IS IMPOSSIBLE!

Now, many fans may not accept this. I remem-
ber the turmoil caused when you published a letter
by K. Bouvier, Jr. a few issues ago. But if any
clear-headed person will take a few seconds out to
think, he will find the above statement true. Now
suppose that you went back in time to, for ex-
ample, May 10th, 1942. You walk into your of-
fice and kill your 1942 self. What would happen?
According to this statement above, you died on
May 10th, 1942. Yet you were alive on that day,
the day after it, and many years after that.

Here’s another example for the six-year olds:
What is to stop you from going back in time and
prevent John Wilkes Booth from killing Lincoln?

I would appreciate it if you would publish this
letter to enlighten your SO INTELLIGENT fans
who have overlooked this fact for years.

Arthur Oesterreicher
241 W.- Olive St.

Long Beach, N. Y.

First, arguments anent time-travel enter into
the metaphysical, and we all know that discussion
has been deadlocked along logic lines there. Sec-
ond, this magazine is predicated on one little
word: “if.” Our authors begin with this: “IF
it is possible to travel in time, we instantly open
up fascinating possibilities I” You yourself postu-
late a very interesting possibility for a story. What
would happen if you prevented the assassination
of Lincoln? There could be a very powerful and
entertaining story here. The very fact that our
fans are intelligent enough to admit the if into
their imaginations, and to argue an abstract sub-
ject in metaphysics would seem to give a more
than convincing reply to your closing inference.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, IF!— Ed.

MORE ST. JOHN COMING!

Sirs :

How does St. John do it? My favorite artist
paints about the best cover of his career. Oh
what a cover! MAGNIFICENT 1 A painting fit
for a king. And hi3 interior illustrations! Mere
words cannot describe their beauty. Would that

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A ...

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I could draw half as good as he does. Of course
I haven’t 'had time to read “The Return of Jon-
gor” yet, but it promises to be good-

While on the subject of St. John, I make an-
other plea for more of his work. This time on
the back cover. Have him create a series “Crea-
tures of Prehistoric Days.” Can’t you just picture
in your mind St. John’s interpetation of a fight
between two dinosaurs? Or the flight of . a ptero-
dactyl across the sunken marshlands? Even the
early cave men battling a sabertooth tiger? I will
bet my last penny it would prove the most popu-
lar of the back cover paintings you ever printed.

Lester Mayer, Jr.

59,2 Main Ave.

Passaic, New Jersey

Your wishes will come true. And your sugges-
tion looks like a very good one to us. We will
give it serious consideration. — Ed.

BACK ISSUES

Sirs:

Just finished reading your February issue. En-
joyed it very much. They were all swell stories
but I liked “Appointment with the Past” best.
“Letter to the Editor” was very good.

I have been reading FA. and A.S. for two years
and have enjoyed every issue.

I have been writing science fiction stories in
high school as themes and may get a good one
to send in to you some time.

I would like to know if you know where I can
get a few issues of 2 years back of either f[.A-or
A.S.? If you can find some please notify me.

Sure do hope you can get back on your regular
schedule again.

Charley Johnson
Box 327
Fernley, Nev.

Page 207 carries a list of back copies still avail-
able. Each of our magazines will carry such a
list each issue , as a regular feature , kept up to
date. — Ed.

HOW ABOUT THIS ISSUE?

Sirs:

This is the second letter I have written. I just
could not help telling you that your mag. should
come out every month. The waiting for it is ter-
rible. To get back to discussions, your best artist
is Finlay, I think. Your best writer is Nelson
Bond. The story that made me buy every issue
is “Stenton’s Shadow.” I liked that story in the
June 1943 issue. Please listen, dear Editor, more
fantastic stuff, less science and book novels. I
don’t mind spending a quarter for F.A., but I
want more interesting stories.

Herby Bell

2195 East 22 St.

Brooklyn, N. Y.

x If you want more fantasy, this issue should be
the answer to your prayers l — Ed.

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

203

TWO REASONS FOR IT

Sirs:

I must say that although there are some faults
to your map, they are two of the best in science-
fiction.

The war sure is cutting down on the number of
stories in the latest issues. I just got hold of a
1942 issue the other day, and It listed 13 stories, -
while the April issue had only 7 stories. Oh, well,
(sigh), the paper shortage can be blamed for that.

“The Return of Jongor” by Williams was a very
good story, but the original, “Jongor of Lost
Land” was even better. The rest of the issue is
fairly good and I commend you upon doing such
a good Job under the conditions of wartime, what
with many of the best authors in the service.

George R. Michel
2061 Watson Ave.
Bronx, New York

Yes, the paper shortage has removed 32 pages
from our magazine; another reason is the demand
for longer stories. This issue has eight stories, in-
cluding one complete novel, which we think it
pretty good . — Ed.

YOU’RE NOT ALONE!

Sirs:

I certainly hof>e the war iB over soon because
there are hardly any SF map left.

I have been reading SF for only three or four
years but I feel as if 1 have read them all. I read
my first SF mag in San Juan, Porto Rico. I bad
just gotten off of a Navy transport and was very
bored because I was alone in the hotel I bought
the first reading matter I saw. I have read them
ever since.

I did not think this month’s mag was excep-
tional but it was all right. I rated them like thb :
The Return of Jongor — 3
Homer and the Herring — S
Time On Your Hands — 4
Freddie Funk’s Forgetful Elephant — 9
A Horse on Thomdyke— 1
Lefty Feep Does Time— 2
The Curse of El Dorado — 2
H. Love

The- Bolles School
Jacksonville, Florida

Yes, H'U be a great day for science fiction when
the war is over I — Ed.

O’BRIEN HIT THE JACKPOT HERE

Sirs:

“The Place is Familiar” by D. W. O’Brien was
very good. More I ! 1 1 “What’s in a Name" by
Berkeley Livingston was a little gem of a story.
Was that “Letter to the. Editor” story on the
level? I, myself, don’t think time travel is pos-
sible. “Outlaw Queen of Venus” by Wallace West
and “The Musketeers in Paris” were both good.
“A Thought in Time” and “Appointment with the
Past” were fair. As for Lefty Feep, I think you
and Bloch are running Him into the ground. Once

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FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

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every 3 or 4 issues is enough for me. He’s begin-
ning to get stale now. Please have more Wilcox
and Ed. Hamilton, they’re iny favorite authors.
Wishing you a good year in ’44.

An Old Reader

Our prediction regarding O’Brien's yarn came
true. It was easily one of the best stories of the
year. Regarding “ Letter To The Editor,” here is
the true story: Author Scott Feldman writes and
admits it was. a gag. He is the author of the story.
But he ran into a fantastic angle even more in-
credible than the story (he says!) regarding that
mysterious assailant who bopped your editor on
the beanl That’s why he was reluctant to confess
once he had pulled the gag. Personally, we will
bop him on the bean if ever we meet him. Some-
how that story just doesn’t jell. And after all, it
will be some satisfaction at least to know that the
mysterious bopper has been repaid if only by
proxy I Ai for the plastic button, we have finally
found its duplicate l — In the Dime Store! Ah well,
it was a very popular little story, and all’s well
that ends well . — Ed.

WHO GHOSTS THERE, FAMILIAR?

Sirs:

Having been for sometime a person who dis-
agrees with everyone else, I have until now been
satisfied with the way Fantastic and' Amazing
were conducting themselves, but It has gotten too
had for me to hold out longer.

In this present issue, the first story, “Outlaw
Queen of Venus,” should never have been pub-
lished in Fantastic. In Amazing, maybe, but
never in F.A. And the editorial comment on D.
W. O’Brien’s story, “The Place is Familiar.” It
says that Kerwin was indebted to the ghosts and
paid them off by pointing the way out. He did
not. He pointed the way out, but he wasn’t in-
debted to them, and they paid him off. And did
you have any vague reason for the name of the
story, of did it just sound nice? It certainly didn’t
fit.

One of your letters mentions several classics
which one doesn’t see nowadays, or anything ap-
proaching them. You in turn give several which
are according to you as good or better than these
others. When these others were written, I didn’t
even read stf, but since then, I have read them,
and the stories you mentioned, while extra good,
are not nearly as good as those the critic men-
tions, In spite of letters. They are acclaimed as
classics merely because, at the level to which sto-
ries have sunk, they are classics. But stick them
with some of the older stories!

How about printing the date when the mag is
supposed to he on the stand, and trying to have
it there?

Please let’s not have the back covers illustrating
any of the stories, because I for one, and I think
many others, keep these back color covers, and
it is nice to have the articles to go with them,
especially those about the stars.

The story about the fairy tales kinda hit home,

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

205

because my friends have even taken to calling me
"Fantastic and Weird,” and if you don’t believe it
just write anybody around here. I am more or
less proud of my imagination, but when every-
body standing around laughs their damn fool
heads off at you it’s a little irksome.

It seems to me that the Camden NJ fan was
right, in spite of any axiomatic laws. Just be-
cause these things happen to be so on Earth
doesn’t hold true on the planets ... or does it?

I sincerely appreciate Mr. G. Foster’s letter and
his way of arguing even if I do disagree with him.
More letters like this, please.

In answer to Carter’s query “Why doesn’t Smith
use the same creature?” If he did, what would
be the use of the series? It would be merely an
old familiar with weapons, and maybe a new
setting.

Gerry Trucano, Jr.

Box 1094

Dickinson, N. Dak.

Although West's story was interplanetary it
seemed to us to have fantastic elements placing it
very strongly in this magazine . Kerwin was in-
debted to the ghosts, because they f saved him from
losing his wife. A “ familiar ” is a ghost that haunts
a person or place. Thus, this “ place ” was haunted,
therefore the title — which is the author's, and
seemed fitting to us. We have found that, as a
general rule, the stories which impressed us most
years ago are a terrific disappointment when re-
read. Not true in all cases, of course, but recently
we’ve had this brought home ■ to us in reading
hundreds of the old favorites. Some, to be quite
frank, are pure com, amateurish, even badly done
— and highly unimaginative. Dates, nowadays,
are like time-travel; they depend cm an if, and it's
a big if. We couldn’t live up to the date if we did
publish it. Transportation priorities you know . —
Ed.

AKTIfST VERSUS MAGICIAN

Sirs:

Have just finished reading the February issue
and I wonder, if the artist who painted the back
cover scene from "Appointment With the Past”
read the story. According to the story, “Oriental”
was very solid and the two men were kidnaped in
the night, not in daylight. Just the same I always
look forward to an issue of Fantastic Adven-
tures, as a whole it’s a magazine that is to my
taste.

f Dallas Daniel

Ri’.D. No. 1

LaGrange, Georgia

B ave you ever seen a movie night scene f It
doesn’t fool you very muck, does it? Yet, it can
be done. But it’s not real. Actually, the scene is
taken in brilliant daylight, and the camera and
film do the rest. However, an artist is not the
magician a camera can be, so picture for yourself \
how the artist would have painted a transparent t
ship in a night scene? Yes, our decision was the I

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206

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same as yours — let him paint it in daylight; the
readers will forgive him this little point. Besides,
it was a swell painting . — Ed.

NOT INCLUDING AMERICANISM!

Sirs:

Some months ago you expressed disapproval as
to the everlastingly nauseating letters you would
receive which would produce a thoroughly un-
interesting rating and would close with either a
corny anecdote or some senseless innuendo that
would benefit none but themselves. I can readily
understand your impatience with such, and I hope
this will be more like what you’ve been asking for.

Now, it may seem rather unbelievable, but sci-
ence-fiction and Fantastic Adventures have,
much contrary to the way it usually is, saved my
honor and prestige among my friends. You see, be-
fore I had even heard stf and fantasy were in ex-
istence, I was one. of the many that allowed them-
selves to be sunk in the quicksand of isms. When
I was attracted to a magazine called Amazing Sto-
ries, which I immediately took up with, as well as
its sister mag, Fantastic Adventures, the truth
came to me how undemocratic isms are, how unlike
the way of life we Americans are used to living.
All thanks go to you, of course, and my appreci-
ation is indeed intense.

Now a few words about your super February
issue of FA. (Via Harry Warner’s excellent method
of rating.)

Cover: Although Rod Ruth isn’t half as good
in color as he is in a black-and-white medium, he
did a beautiful job of depiction. Congrats on his
first good painting, and points.

Back cover: Settles is a good man to have.

• Donlt lose him — just look at the beautiful work
he did on those life-savers, and partially in water
color too ! Tho, I must say you certainly fizzled
out on that “series” you started a while back.
Don’t get me wrong now, the drawings were
swell, but your proposed sequence (Ah, for a
synonym) petered out, N’est-ce pas? 8 pts.

Stories: The outstanding three were “Outlaw
Queen of Venus,” “The Musketeers in Paris” and
(believe it or not) “A Letter to the Editor.” Rob-
ert Bloch has become almost mediocre with his
quaint little character. Overdone, rather, let. him
drop Feep for awhile and create an equally en-
tertaining character to fill in. What do you think
about it? Good Lord, how could you possibly
call Yerxa’s “story” worthy of merit? Pshaw,
nothing but a cheap little tale not possibly or re-
motely connected with true stf. No, methinx
you’re still buying bis yarns because of his four
kids. Oh, yes, not very much chance of using the
Warner rating system here, so will only say the
first three mentioned were tops, and especial thanx
for ?’3 “Letter to the Editor.” T’was really a
unique idea.

j Illustrations: Finlay,, and McCauley cop first
I honors, each glomming a 9. It’s too bad Finlay’s
intricacy can’t be as finely reproduced on pulp aa

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

207

on slick. St. John wasn’t too bad, but his German
looked more like the mortgage-holding villian of
yore, greedily eyeing the beautiful damsel. Wish
Magadan would make up her mind as to how
Lefty Feep looks.

The ish as a whole was far better than its pre-
ceding four, an’ I hope you can keep up the
tempo. I’d like to see more of Rod Ruth on the
interiors, if you can get time.

David H. White
1S01 N. Broadway Ave.
Everett, Washington

We are glad to see that our magazines seem to
be convincingly democratic m principle. We try
not to be political in our stories or our editorial
notes. This is a fiction magazine, and the char-
acters in its fiction are Americans, good and true.
We mistakenly credited Rod Ruth with the cover
of the February issue. Robert Gibson Jones, aided
by Julian S. Krupa and Malcolm Smith, is re-
sponsible. Our "series” is still going on, but we
vary it with other “series ". — Ed.

CORRESPONDENCE

CORNER

HpHIS feature will be discontinued for the
duration in the interests of the safety of
our armed forces and of. national security.

j BACK ISSUES CORNER

Each issue we will publish the following list
of copies of back issues of Fantastic Adven-
tures still available. They can be secured by
addressing the Circulation Department. Cost
of all issues more than six months from date
of this issue is 30c; less than six months pre-
vious 2 Sc.

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

Jan

Feb

Mar

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May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

, , , .

Oct

Nov

Dec

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BELLEROPHON

AND THE

CHIMERA

By MORRIS J. STEELE

Because a King set traps to kill him, this Greek became
one of the greatest legendary heroes of ancient time

B ELLEROPHON, or Bellerophontes, was the
son of Glaucus, and the grandson of Sisy-
phus, who was one of the great men of an-
cient Ephyre, or modern Corinth.

When Anteia, wife of Proteus, King of Argos,
fell in love with .him, she made overtures which i
were rejected by Belleropbon. True to the tradi-
tion of “a woman spumed” she sought revenge;
and true to the “Potiphar’s wife” theme, she ac-
cused him to her husband.

Proteus thereupon sent Bellerophon to his fa-
ther-in-law, Iobates; King of Lycia, bearing a note
which directed Iobates to have him killed.

However, previous to this event, Bellerophon
had succeeded in taming the winged horse, Pegasus,
at Corinth, and thus rode the animal to Lycia.

Arriving there, the King sent him in a suicidal
mission against the Chimera, which was a fire-
breathing monster, part goat, part serpent, part
lion. In a thrilling battle, mounted on Pegasus,
Belleropbon succeeded in killing the Chimera.

Iobates was not baffled for long. He promptly
sent Bellerophon against a warlike tribe, the Soly-
mi. Bellerophon adminstered the whole tribe a
resounding whipping and returned triumphant,
eager for more battles.

Obligingly Iobates sent him against the Ama-
zons, who, in addition to being fdarsome warriors,
were also women. Nothing daunted, Bellerophon
forgot his gentlemanly instincts long enough to
cuff them around in unmerciful fashion, emerging
the victor over very potent muscles and non-
existent 'feminine charm. (It has been said that
the Amazons amputated their right breast to avoid
obstruction of the strings of their mighty bows.)

Irked by bis 'constant failures to execute the
doughty young warrior, Iobates .selected a group
of his own chosen warriors and laid an ambush
for the youth- It was to be outright murder. It
turned out to be a form of murder, all right, but
Bellerophon did the murdering. He waded through
the ambush ers with great gusto, and came up yell-
ing for more.

There was only one thing for Iobates to do ; he
recognized the fact that Bellerophon was more
than human, and capitalized on the realization by
marrying his daughter to him.

A lot of money must have gone with the deal,

and the reason for it might be apparent when we
consider that legend says nothing about the daugh-
ter’s looks, which in legend means she hadn’t, any
— at any rate, Bellerophon lived in prosperity for
several years. *

It is 6aid the gods love battle — especially if
someone else is doing the battling; which may be
the reason that Bellerophon finally fell v out of
favor with them. Two of his children died, and
Bellerophon was grief-stricken. He became a wan-
derer, shunning mankind.

One version of legend gives a more definite rea-
son for Bellerophon’s simpleton-like visit to Lycia
bearing a note directing his own destruction. It
seems he was fleeing from the consequences of
slaying the Corinthian hero, Bellenis, or his own
brother) as some accounts have it.

That Bellerophon recognized the fact that some-
one was after his scalp is revealed by his subse-
quent visit to Proteus to take Anteia for what
may have been the first' “ride.” He took her on
the winged horse, Pegasus, to a great height and
revenged himself by the simple expedient of drop-
ping her off and telling her to walk back.

It might have been the effects of his sudden
affluence after his marriage to the daughter of
Iobates that caused his falling into disfavor with
the gods. It is said that men with nothing to
occupy their time, and too much money, get into
mischief by thinking up things to do that are a
little too ambitious. Belleropbon, having a winged
' horse, hit on the idea of flying to heaven. We can
understand why the gods objected.

They caused him to fall from his hoTse. Perhaps
this is the best proof of bis innate toughness,' be-
cause the fall only lamed him, in spite of the fact
that he bailed out without a parachute.

Bellerophon, according to accounts of the details
of his first amazing feat, the taming of Pegasus,
accomplished the trick by means of a spedal bridle
given him by the goddess, Athena.

Although Bellerophon is- considered to be a
strictly Greek hero, he was actually stolen by the
Greek mythologists from an Oriental beginning.
Little is known of his exploits as an Oriental hero,
although they must have beai considerable, or he
would not have been adopted by the publicity-
loving Greeks.

208

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES

209

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